2008

• My next-door neighbours are involved in making a feature film, shooting tonight nearby.
• Conan the Barbarian or Super Mario Galaxy? Just one of life’s puzzles. Who am I kidding? Mario beats Arnold hands-down.
• Listening to TMBG’s new children’s album… after E. has gone to bed. Is it bad that I enjoy it as much as her?
• Just saw Eastern Promises. Great movie, great eye-stabbing scene.
• Four chicken frames -> eight litres of chicken stock, frozen, to last us for the next few weeks.
• Time to spend some time in the curious village.
• How would YOU matchmake a bunch of humans into groups that then play each other at some game? Huh?
• Basking in the glory of a freshly cleaned car.
• Bowling is easier on the Wii. Beginning to suspect same for boxing.
• Car stolen, crashed and written off. Up since 4am with the police.

2009

• Back home; squeeze in an hours coding before bed at 3:30am, then wake up at 8:30am to get back to the Jam.
• Been indoors for 8 days. Finally starting to feel on the mend. Was quite worried there for a bit – thought we were goners. Swine flu sucks!
• Dana wants to push up to jump. Eighties child can’t handle more than one button. A to blow, B to jump… how hard can it be?
• Final Twin Peaks sesh tonight. Dinner: T-Bone with Diane sauce, potato au gratin, salad, beer. Snacks: showbag goodies, beer.
• Just tried to get into the wrong car. For five minutes.
• Coffee and croissant at Perth airport, waiting for flight to Melbourne. Go!
• Whisky poisoning not too bad. Coffee and shower, then off for Jaffe’s keynote.
• Farbs: fan e-mail is a gateway drug to self-Googling.
• Best advice for startups from the big publishers: “don’t build an MMO”.
• Yahtzee says Project Natal is a “creepy little boy simulator”.
• Dinner at Attica… Rob Sitch and Eddie Maguire just walked in. Only in Melbourne!
• Plan to polish & release KranzkyEngine, and develop PostalWorker, which was devised at the hotel bar.
• What’s up with the Hawkeye 4wd driving around with like 20 cameras mounted all over it? Seen in Northbridge.
• Great party last night; 21yo scotch, good cheese, and arthouse cinema in the back garden. All while the kids went berserk. In a good way.
• I ran 14345m before hitting a wall and tumbling to my death on my iPhone.

2010

• Mixed a brandy-and-dry, and drank while munching green olives with pimientos. I think my hair will turn a swept-back grey soon.
• Frankly, you should quite frankly prototype your GUI. Frankly, I say!
• Channel 9 commentary: “he’s universally known in America”
• Note to self: don’t type “anal” into the address bar as a shortcut to Google Analytics.
• Counted dozens of smashed car windows walking to train station. Some brand new luxury cars in dealerships too.
• Arrived at beautiful holiday house on the beach in Eagle Bay. Now, to figure out the optimum way to relax…
• Played San Juan at 399bar last night, and I must say it was pretty cool. More German board games in small bars!
• “I saw it on YouTube” not a valid defense for making daughter Cheerios fried in butter. But it seems so American! And we had no popcorn!
• Curse you, Desktop Dungeons, for stealing my Friday night.
• Chicken livers and ladies fingers at The Prophet. Good friends, good wine, good times. Great party at Tee’s afterwards. Eh, what kids???
• Oh man that was totally fucked up. In the most awesome of ways. Breaking Bad, you’re the best thing ever.
• Off tonight for a beef injection (1.5kg 400+ day dry aged wagyu ribeye to share, with roasted bone marrow and potatoes gratin). And wine!
• Meat Stylus.
• I am the mayor of crumpet (unfortunately NOT a euphemism).
• Just realised I’m sharing my iTunes library at work. Trouble is, I’ve only used this laptop to assemble a playlist for my mum’s 60th.

Hmmm… what a strange way to look back on your life! But, I gotta say, I prefer myself in retrospect :)

I’m particularly proud because someone in the building where I work isn’t capable of doing this, and they’re all growed up.

Almost Empty. Photo by Eastwood/Getty.

Rather than going through the simple, obvious steps (unhook toilet roll holder, slide off used cardboard tube, pick up fresh roll from the convenient stack within arms reach, thread it on the holder, rehook the holder, take the empty cardboard tube out when you’re done to throw in the bin), they’ve chosen some not-so-obvious ones (start rationing the last remaining scraps of paper in the hope that you’ll avoid the hassle of being the person to replace the toilet roll by leaving one tiny dangling ripped piece of paper on the roll, thereby signalling that it’s Not Quite Finished Yet, or, in the worst-case scenario, retrieve a fresh roll only to balance it precariously on top of the fucking empty cardboard tube, resulting in a completely non-functional toilet paper dispenser).

This obviously annoys me, as small things often do. It’s annoying mostly because it’s not obvious why this strategy benefits the individual whom practices it. You see, it doesn’t require any less effort than the strategy which has a beneficial outcome for every (man) in the building, so why do it at all? When presented with two actions of comparable cost, why not choose the one with greater utility? Isn’t there an Occam’s Razor for responsible human behaviour?

Equally annoying are drivers who choose to signal that they’re changing lanes, turning the corner or moving into the freeway exit ramp while they’re in the act of doing it. I can understand why people choose not to signal at all – they’re actually saving themselves a modicum of effort. But why go to the same effort (of moving your hand to the signal lever and pushing it up or down) while, at the same time, completely removing any beneficial effect to other drivers on the road (that is, actually giving us fair warning of your intentions)? I know that when you were seventeen you were taught how to move the signal lever by moving it while turning the steering wheel (up for anti-clockwise, down for clockwise), but that doesn’t mean you should still be doing that. It’s not a rule, you know.

I try to give these people the benefit of the doubt, I really do, but it’s of no use. I think they’re just passively evil.

In one of tonight’s episodes, a recently shot Agent Cooper has a visitation from a giant who tells him “the owls are not what they seem”. Afterwards I mentioned how, back in ’91 or ’92, the idea of owls as replacement memories for alien visitations spooked me out. I think I was reading Whitley Strieber’s books at the time, and I took them semi-seriously. Daz reminded me of something I’d forgotten; I used to speak of seeing a “golliwog” – a living, breathing creature – behind the shed of a neighbour when we lived in our childhood home. I must have been about four at the time, and I guess I remembered it vividly enough when I was 18 or whatever, and watching Twin Peaks for the first time.

I can only think that my neighbour (a boy a year older than me) and I snuck around the back of the shed, and…

1. saw a toy golliwog on the ground. Or…
2. got surprised by the boy’s father, who was holding a golliwog and trying to frighten us. Or…
3. it never happened, and I’m just remembering a nightmare I had as a child. Or…
4. we saw a frickin’ alien.

Should I Facebook this childhood neighbour and put the question to him? Or will he think me insane?

• Medium rare eye fillet, seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and garlic.
• Fresh green salad with a dressing of good olive oil and verjuice.
• Caramelised onions, cooked in the pan juices.
• Confit potatoes, made by boiling cubed potatoes in a heatproof bag, with goose fat and white pepper.
• A pint of Little Creatures.

Yep, not bad.