Real Estate Agents - Fuck em!

I've been trying to organise to inspect some rental properties today for my trip to Newcastle on Monday. I start work on the 6/2, so I have a pretty limited schedule in which to get things organised.

Now, given that the RTA will be paying my rent while I'm there, well reimbursing me for it actually, but same thing (RTA pays grads rent for placements outside of Sydney, to get the majority of graduates who are city people to actually leave Sydney at some stage and have to deal with some of the different conditions we have to deal with - I hate Sydney so for me its just a bonus!). Anyways, given my rent will be paid as close to guaranteed as possible, and I would like to sign a lease and pay a bond while I'm down there on Monday, you'd think these people would be bending over backwards to help a guaranteed renter into a property.

But no, after about 4 hours of phone calls, I have a grand total of one inspection organised, and maybe one group who I believe will actually live up to their promise to get back to me in any meaningful time period. Needless to say, the one inspection I do have is looking pretty good at the moment, given that I'm not overly fussy and will be quite happy as long as the place isn't a rat infested shithole.

So, at this stage, it looks like I'll go and look at this place in the morning, and plan B will be an adlibbed drive around where I drop into various estate agents in person, ask for keys to go look at places, and try and get through to these idiots that I can and will do something right now.

Should I ever get designated higher being of the known universe, I will reserve a special place in hell for real estate agents, lawyers, telemarketers and car salesmen.

Long time no blog

Looked here today and wow its been a long time since I posted. When I last blogged I was just starting working here in Parra, and now my 6 motnh stint is up next week and I'll be off to Newcastle.

It can't come a moment too soon either - I have really struggled living in Sydney for the last 3 or 4 months. Its been affecting everything I do, my work has been poor IMO, and I haven't generally felt like leaving my place in the hope I can convince myself I'm not in Sydney or something. I think moving away from here will be really good for me.

So what else has been happening?

I'm pretty much over playing fumbbl for the moment, only going to play SWL divisions now. I had a fling with PBeM on MBBL, but not liking the Vault rules much, and not really able to have much of a say in them, when I've been playing a bit much at work I decided I needed to give that away for a while.

I've started playing World of Warcraft (crack), mainly due to my mates Dave and Todd finding a good guild. That guild has since merged into another one, and I'm hoping these people will be just as cool. I like Guild Wars a lot better as a game, but found it to be mainly populated by pre-pubescent $#^&tards.

I've also taken up poker a bit, was playing in a game at Unlimited Hobbies in Blacktown for a while, but that seems to have died in the arse. Played a the Casino once, and ran a home game at the Belltower another time, which was probably the most enjoyable game I've played. I fiddle around a bit online, but not with real money since I don't have a credit card. I'm tempted to give it a try just to see how I stack up though. I also plan on trying to establish a regular game once I get to Newcastle.

Where to look?

Having started my new job a week ago, I now find myself commuting by train. Its only a short journey (4 stops, 5-10 minutes), so its not really long enough to do much of anything like read a book or something. So I find myself just sitting there looking around. Problem is where do you look. Do you gawk at people, who may or may not think you're staring and start wondering if they remembered to put pants on before leaving the house?

Its pretty boring looking anywhere else - the scenery outside doesn't change. I suppose I need to get an I-Pod or MP3 player or some such so I can become one of the drones lost in their own little world, but I reckon I'd still be wanting to look around. If I had the dough I'd just get a PSP or something.

On another front - I'm still undefeated after 3 games in SWL Conference play this season - all games having been against team larger than mine, about 20 TR in the first instance and about 50 in the other two, so I'm well chuffed with that. There's only one team left to face thats a lot bigger, and they are the only other undefeated team. I'm looking good to make it to Premier next season at the moment, which would be itneresting as I would once again be the midget team.

Eucalyptus Bowl is looking the goods now - we have 23 paid up entries, and I reckon with people who've yet to pay and people who rock up on the day we may well get over 30 - here's hoping!

Chunky does Melbourne

Wow! The last month or so has been hectic as! I've changed jobs within the RTA, which means I've been busy at work the last couple of weeks, then done a trip to Melbourne. Scattered in amongst that were a few early morning trips to Lawson for work.

This past weekend I travelled down to Melbourne to go to Komplete Fanatik, a Blood Bowl tournament run by GW, the mob that actually make the game. Their support for the game in Australia has been shabby at best, so I decided to go along in the hope that if its a success, more support will follow.

So I'd already organised to have some leave from work, taking Friday, Monday and Tuesday off. I also decided this would make an appropriate time to change job placements (RTA Grad program has us change placements every 6 months in Feb and Aug). So the plan was to drive down on Friday, go to the tourney on Saturday and Sunday, and drive back Monday, leaving me Tuesday to pitter about doing things like washing before reporting to a new workplace on Wednesday.

So off I drove on Friday, the destination being JoeKano from SWL's house in Skye SE of Melbourne. First screwup was me leaving off JKs direction, I just had his address. The drive went quite well, with a few stops along the way, but became interesting once I hit Melbourne. It was getting dark, and my cars internal light doesn't really work properly, making navigation in unfamiliar areas tricky.

I ended up going right up the guts into Melbourne itself. This was quite an experience for this simple country lad who hates driving in the city. No-one seemed to follow the lanes properly, there were trams, and the roundabouts not only weren't round, but had 17 different roads leading off each one it seemed. Melbourne also seems to have quite large street signs or none at all. I was actually doing quite well, when I missed a turn due to their being no sign and the road in question seeming far smaller than what I was looking for. After travelling through almost every one way street in Melbourne I eventually got on the right track, and through pot luck ended up finding ym way there without too much further hassle - except for when I stopped round the corner from JKs place to check his house number etc I ended up in mud, nearly got bogged, and sprayed mud right up the side of my car.

I also found out later on that there are no signs before speed cameras in Melbourne, so I'm hoping I didn't good booked for speeding, as I had no idea what the speed limit was at times.

So I ended up at Jandrews house (JKs real name is Andrew) where I was planning to stay the weekend. Unfortunately Mrs Jandrew (also known as Fiona) was crook as a dog. JK and myself went out ot grab some Subway for all and a carton of beer - I decided to get Lowenbrau as it was on special and I had enjoyed a night out at the restaurant earlier in the year. I like it. Double thumbs up to Subway for toasted subs as well, they rock in winter.

So we arrived at Komplete Fanatik the next morning, getting there without a hitch. I was able to meet some more fellow SWLers in the flesh for the first time, these being the way too tall Travis Twahn (honestly, does the man on this page: http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=coachinfo&coach=1780 seem 6 foot four?), and Paul, also known as annachie. I would also end up meeting Miyuso and Faibios on the Sunday when they popped in to visit, though I think I may have scarred Faibs son for life I was that scary.

I have a report of the event in general that can be found on wargamerWAU, talkbloodbowl, NAF, and DMs blog (dirty content stealing bastard ;), so I won't expound on the tourney any further, except tosay that Mr Lanky Bugger Twahn won and I ended up with Best and Fairest. We were able to make trophy envy jokes with gumbi on our way home.

On to more important things! On Saturday night, myself, gumbi and Twahn all crashed at JKs place so we could have a game of Munchkin, a game I had recently purchased after playing it at ozjestings place on the previous Monday. That had been tops, with me playing numerous fantastic backstabs on all concerned, with of course everyone eventually getting revenge on me. In the end, gumbi had won that battle after everyone realised it was midnight and we all needed to get home for work the next day :(

This time it was to be different however, as with the aid of my cheesy wizard class I was able to sweep all before me! Unfortunately this particular game didn't seem to be as good, even compared to the one JK and I had played when we both inexplicably woke up at 3am the previous morning and played while watching the World Poker Tour.

While travelling to Komplete Fanatik was easy, the trip back from proved to be anything but. It seem Melbournites really struggle with the whole giving directions thing, generally letting you know as you whizz by a turn that you were supposed to go that way. This led to an interesting route on the way back to JKs place on Saturday night, and an even more interesting one on the way to drop off Twahn and go to gumbis hotel room (Fiona had unfortunately become more ill, so I decided leave the poor Kano family in peace).

The night in gumbis hotel room was interesting. I ate half of gumbis red frog lollies while watching the cricket (shame Warney missed his hundred) and waiting for him to finish on the phone (when I promptly decided a shower was in order). Then we went to grab some grub, and gumbis doubting my culinary tastes proved futile, as he ended buying some dodgy rolls and eating my stuff which was very nice. We then watched a version of Ong Bak with very amusing Engrish subtitles.

So lessons learnt from my trip:

- Melbourne road network is confusing
- Not even Melbourne people know where they're going
- I need more Munchkin stuff
- Speeding fines suck

Unfortunately I got a speeding fine on the trip back. I was about 150 kms from sydney, when I saw a police car radar, and he lit up his lights on seeing me, I looked down at the speedo to see I was speeding and went oh bugger. I think I'll fly down if I go again. I was just a bit tired and didn't realise I was going that fast.

And now on to the reallt important stuff: Theme Music. I have decided that everyone should have their own theme music. I have already decided that gumbis should be something bland but cool, and now I ahve a challenge for any readers I may have:

In the comments let me know what theme music you would give people. It can be anyone really - me, gumbi, you, your missus, a random celebrity, that chick that served you at the bar at the pub the other day. Best one gets something that probably isn't worth getting when I eventually decide what it is.

Pics!

I finally remembered to bring the work camera home, so here is a quick pic of my necro team, and the Chaos Warriors from ym Chaos team.

Little Metal Men (of doom)

I like to add the words of doom to nearly anything for some reason. Does this mean I will one day become a caricature movie villain?

Anyways, I'm trying to work out how to get pics in here, so hopefully this will work and there will be some pics of my wargaming miniatures that I've painted. Unfortunately my camera work sucks, so the pics aren't that great (and these are the ones that made it through the culling).

First up we have my Chaos Dwarfs. These little chaps in their very dildoish hats were a very sweet paintjob that were unfortunately ruined by GW Varnish - which has made them now look like they've been snowed on instead of in the middle of a lava field. At some stage I'll end up stripping the paint of em and repainting them methinks.

Next up are some negroid Dwarfs I painted up for cash for one of the blokes in a league I'm in. I think they turned out well, especially the Slayers, and definitely look quite different.

Next up is my favourite teams - the Dwarfs! Note the tricked out Dwarven pimpmobiles in the background - they will one day have fluffy dice and subwoofers attached so they're fully sick mate.

Last but not least are my Human team. These guys are my current tournament team of choice, and I'm hoping to get them to be the number one ranked Human team in the world so I can do poor imitations of Tommy Deans 3rd best High Elf coach in the world bit.


I hope to bring the digital camera back from work soon so I can get some pics of a few of my latest projects up as well.

Bend and stretch, reach for the stars, there goes Jupiter here comes Mars

Title is mainly because I thought up and down would be a bit boring, and this Romper Room song jumped into my head. Romper Room was cool.

I've had a very Jekyll and Hyde run the last couple of weeks in both fumbbl and tabletop.
First I was getting some extremely good luck - laying the smackdown on the TBBrookie league on fumbbl, and rolling 2 +ST on the one Beastman (w00t!).

Then I played a PBBL league game that went quite well, and rolled another 2 for my Dwarfs! Next day we had a bit of a meetup at UH in Blcktown, and after the first game for my High Elves, I got another +ST!

Then it all fell to bits again though. Playing two games at once with my High Elves and Dwarfs, my HE were down to 6 players in about 4 turns at the hands of Doubleskulls, with all my best players being the casualties.

On the other board, bu Dwarfs were playing pretty newbie Ogres, and they were dice rolling us off the park! They didn't fall over on a single one of their Blocks, and there were very few Bonehead failures either. In the end we took 6 CAS, including a dead Trollslayer, my ST4 Runner copping -AV, and two other MNGs.

The bad luck has continued through my SWL regional games, losing a ghoul and wight off my necro, and we got absolutely smacked in 3BL, where we saw a Saurus score a one turn TD, and our buzzing troll on 4spp BHed before we got a turn.

The kicker was yesterday though, when in the top of the table clash between my undefeated Dwarfs and the undefeated (and very dubious, but thats another story) Wood Elves. We got beat 7-0! We'd only let in 3 TDs all season, then bang. We only had 3 AG 3+ players on the pitch to start, and one of these was Grim Ironjaw, who had better things to do than ball handle. We lost the AG4 Blitzer very early though, and my Runner proceeded to gift the Woodies 5! touchdowns with spectacularly incompetent ball handling. All in all, we simply had trouble knocking over the woodies, and then injuring them when we actually did knock em over.
I think I'm a take a break a bit this week.