Episode III : Revenge on the Beach

I know, I know... its a corny title. But in view of the measly 4 hours I slept in order to ensure that I slot in my eBay bid at the last minute, I think I can use sleep deprivation as an excuse. I'll come up with better ones next time. Another week has gone by. The pace of my flying training has finally picked up. In my current phase of circuits, weather tolerance during the flight is greater, so I can fly more often even in marginal weather. So that's a good thing I guess, unless you think of the compacted amount of time I have to prepare for my next flights.

So let's see.... What have I done last week? Definitely wasn't watching the 26 Dvds I bought but never recieved. Its a long story, and not a very legal one either, but suffice to say that I now have to arrange for my Dvds to be shipped over to Perth coz I didn't recieve them before I left Singapore. I Ebayed alot, started and maintained my marathon/triathlon training schedule thus far (fingers crossed on the next few weeks. Going to go running tomorrow. Yes Chris, I mocked you and your triathlon training, but I'm also doing it now...) and did the stupidest thing I can think of thus far - went to the beach in winter. No, there's no snow/ice at the beach in winter. This is not Alaska, but the water was freakin cold nonetheless. Luckily, with the ozone hole above australia, the sun's pretty intense (not EXACTLY a good thing either. Loads of SPF 70 was used that day...), which helped with the numbing coldness once I was out of the water. Peter actually turned green in the face due to the cold waters. And we swore never to go back in Scarborough waters till mid summer.

Enough with the words. On with the pictures...

eBay is so addictive... it is pure EVIL. It has to be one of the most evil and sinful things mankind has ever produced. I rank it up there together with B&J ice cream, WMDs, George Bush (both of them), and the spore gahmen...

The pictures of the 2 bikes are what I won from bidding on eBay. Which color's nicer? Red or Black? Feedback pls. I got only one of them of course. Won the red one, but requested from the seller to give me the black one instead. Looked cooler I think. Tell me if I made the right choice. A pointer to all eBayers out there. The idea is NOT to drive the price up at the START or the middle of the auction. The idea is to wait till the last 5 minutes to put your maximum bid up. Like this, no one bids anymore than they are willing to pay at the outset. Don't help the seller by bidding early and forcing other bidder's psychological limit to go higher and higher. A bidding war will ensue, and that will only result in 1 of 2 things: 1- You lose the bid. 2- You win the bid, but at a much higher price than you INITIALLY wanted to pay. Either way, YOU LOSE. Well, that's exactly what I did for the bike. It started out with me wanting a road type bike. My budget was a measly AU$300 for any bike. In Perth, that would mean you could only afford a mountain bike (and it has to be one on a very good discount to boot) that had its wheels changed to slick ones. A real hybrid road/mountain bike would cost 400-800 bucks at entry level, and a real full on road/racer bike would set you back a cool 800-1K. So you see, I was in a bit of a fix. But then I saw the above auction on ebay. It was bidding at around 150 initially. I watched the item of course, and saw the price quickly climb up near the final hour due to a bidding war started by 2 of the bidders who constantly upped their maximum bid in order to outbid the other. Finally, it stopped at 222 coz obviously one of them couldn't afford to go any higher. I noted the pattern of small increments in the past bidding and patiently waited and waited till there was only 1 minute on the clock and I bid a max bid of $250. I became the highest bidder for the bike at $233 (my max bid was $250, but eBay's automated bidding system registered $233 as the minimum needed to break the other bidder's max bid. cool system isn't it.) . 16 seconds were left on the clock, and I won the bike without giving the other bidder another chance to up my bid. So I won my racer at $233. WAY below 800-1K and even below my budget of $300. Nuff said. And so started my addiction to eBaying. I even woke up in the middle of the night just in order to repeat that method so that I could win items at an equally low prices. I bought 6 items from ebay in the last 1-2 weeks. EBAY = EVIL

 Pair of Shimano sunglasses I won. Much cheaper than retail of course. Sorry baby, I just couldn't resist.

That's me walking down to the beach, wondering what I'm doing there in the middle of winter...
 

Yoda vs Sith Lord
Pete: Hmm.... throw you into the cold waters I shall...
Calvin: Oh yeah? You and what army?
Pete: Know the power of my Force you will.
Calvin: Your Force? I'm gonna Force this light-saber right up your a**!!

 

 Super Calvin!! Or issit just Outtaman?

 Ever used a metal toilet bowl before? I now can proudly say that I have... Wonder what that blue box in the corner is about.

 A ladybug decided to follow the happening hunks from Jandakot to the beach. :D This is a shot of her running along the beach ala Baywatch style. 

 Pamela Anderson jumping into the waves to rescue one of my guys who was drowning. (or at least pretending to be)

 Pete: Now that we are out of the water, and all dried up by the sun, lets compare whoose trousers shrank the most.
Calvin: Yay! I win!
Pete: Yeah, I think you did.

 Bikini babe suntanning? Or simply a lazy sand angel (cousin of snow angel)? You decide.

 Pete: Hmm... Guess how many armpit hairs I have?
Derek: ....

 Me: Let's see who has the tallest.. erm.. column!
Pete: Yes, Let's do that.
Me: I tell you, you have to make a pouch to protect it from the elements.
Calvin: I am Poseidon! Hear me roar!! *Wave rushes over and crushes all the columns*
Pete, Me: Dammit, our columns are crushed.
Ian: ....

 Some sea monster that came up from the waves that also crushed our columns. Quick, Call Outtaman!

  Well what do you know. There's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Seems like Simon and Garfunkel were prophetic huh?


 Collage of pictures that I took but did not use.

Next up, updates on how my excercise thingie is going, amongst other things.

Part Deux

Hello again everyone, today marks the day that I've spent an interesting 2X7 days in Perth already. It's been an interesting 2 weeks thus far I must say. I miss everyone back in Singapore of course, but at the same time, I made sure that I enjoyed myself at Perth. Before I launch into the things that I've done so far, I'm going to say that I flew only twice in the C172 in the last 2 weeks. That's not alot at all... I blame it on the weather, but at the same time, I'm secretly gleeful that I got so much off time in these 1st 2 weeks... :D

Hm... let's see...

Let's start off with the accomodation:

My staircase...

*Duh*

Don't honestly know why I took this pic. Just thought that I could frame the picture nicely and hence I gave it a shot. Literally. :P

The corridor immediately outside of my door.

That's my sleeping corner of the accomodation. (But that's DEFINITELY NOT me- I do NOT look like THAT. I hope I never look like that. :D ) That thing on my bed is just some debris that dropped out of some aircraft onto my bed. FOD.

My shoe space. And that's my Kendo Shinai and Brokken in the corner. No prizes for guessing how long it'll stay this organized...

My 1st ride in Australia. Its a Toyota Celica. Rode in it for the 2 weeks. For Benji, the lights of this car open up like eyelids. For those who know I love red, note the matching outfit.....:D *Yeah yeah, for the record and for the world to see, the car's not mine. I was driven around in it for the 1st 2 weeks and I loved every minute of it. Driver was Derek :D I'm not changing the part about the bed though... *

This pic is of a street that my guys call "Harry Potter street" due to the medieval architechture of the whole street. It is really quite cool with coats of arms and other archaic trappings lining the street. It was taken on my 1st night trip to Perth city. My guys for some strange reason wanted to go to Borders. Dunno if they bought any books. All I know is that we went to Subiaco after that for coffee at some chi chi coffee joint. I ordered my fav Chai Latte and waited a good 1/2 hour (service in australia is not known for its promptness) until I reminded them about it. Then they informed me that they had run out of the Chai tea leaves (BIG minus points). So I placed an order for chamomile, which took so long to arrive that I thought that they had run out of hot water or something. Stupid place. Will never go there again. Luckily for the shop, I forgot what it was named. Otherwise, I'd just put it up here as a warning for the reader.

Oh yes, the most important part of this pic. Just below the clock face are 2 lines that read: No minute gone comes ever back again. Take heed and see ye nothing do in vain.

The Armageddon walk.

Eat my dust Robin!! Or was it Peter...?

This is a "I'm pretending to be a pro photographer" shot. Thought I saw something like it somewhere on some 60s/70s music album. So the road sign is at the corner of Cherokee and Aztec roads. Its situated where we park our cars. It kinda makes me wonder whether some the red indians or mebbe mayans are gonna pop out from the bushes.



CHILLI MUSSELS!!!! Single most important thing that I got to experience in the 2 weeks. There were a tad small when we tried them last week due to the wintery season... but there's no lack in flavour for this dish. Tomato paste as a base, balanced off with chilli.... *homer gurgle* Wait till summer in November says the chef if we want the BIG mussels. You know where to look for me on christmas.


Am I upside down? Or is the world down side up? Walkin on Sky...










So this marks the end of the 1st 2 weeks of Australia. Next episode, Scarborough beach.




"And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand.
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am.
-- Iris, Goo Goo dolls

First Contact

Hey there. This is my 1st ever weblog and 1st ever blog entry. It's actually highly atypical for me to create this log or blog since, from the beggining of the phenomenon, I have disdained blogging and bloggers who simply just blog about their own lives and go on and on and on about what they like and don't like, what they did or didn't do, blah blah blah. I view these people as wanting nothing more out of the weblog than a way to scream at the world for attention. It's like - " Look here! Look here! I exist! Look at me so that you acknowledge that I exist! I'm going to sensationalize and create my 'life' into something as colorful and interesting as possible so that hopefully you will come back and read my life again and know that I still exit." So yes, I view pure recreational blogging as simply a childish way of trying to grab attention from the world out there in order to validate and affirm their own existence. No value added to the world out there as a result of their blogs. No thoughts or viewpoints, however deep or shallow they may be. Nothing beneficial to the reader other than knowing what kinda toast the blogger was eating the day before.

So, as a statement, I am creating this blog as requested by my loved ones, in order to update my folks and loved ones back home as I am overseas. It is useful for them to read my blog to know what I am doing when I have no time to update them myself. And it will serve as a substitute (albeit extrememely poor one) to my physical presence (but hey, at least a blog stays in one constant place and so they will always know where to find 'me'). And of course, my own musings and viewpoints about things will be inserted in places.

So, Next episode: Pics and updates about my 2 weeks in Aussieland.