Trolls

I've given up on so many forums already that it's ridiculous. Trolls who have nothing better to do than, well, troll–and through that chase people off. The result is an empty forum, where those same trolls get to rant to themselves about how everyone else sucks.

A thing as bad as a troll is a smartarse. Someone who believes (and isn't afraid to say, i.e. type it under a nickname) they're the only ones with the right opinion, everyone else is childish and inexperienced, they know better than everyone else because of XY etc.

I don't really mind as there will always be trolls, but when it reaches a certain point, is stops being annoying and starts being hilarious. Yes, in that order. I've had people cornered because they came to the point where they'd run away from a discussion by saying you're stupid or something along those lines. Very mature indeed.

The funny thing is I thought that sort of behaviour ends when people are 19, but obviously not for everyone. Living a couple of continents away, the biggest chunk of me communication happens over the internet. And, boy, do I run into piles of crap there!

A recent (for the lack of a better word) discussion made me feel like slapping the person across the forehead with a wet, old, stinky stuffed bunny for all the disrespect, annoyance, egotism and what not she's launched in my direction. I'll simplify the conversation that extends through fifteen or so posts over several weeks.

XY asks me: So how does that work with people?
Me: Well, in my experience, it's like this and this.
Mrs Buttwad: No [corrects my spelling], it's like this [totally different].
Me: Sorry, but I don't like you correcting me on something that's clearly a personal opinion and correct spelling.
Mrs Buttwad: Well, I know better because I've lived here longer. You're a newb.
Me: Yeah, but the literature says that's wrong.
Mrs Buttwad: Well, I don't care about that. And those people [talking about a whole nation with a 50,000 year old culture] feel like this and this and that's why they use this term. If you check Wittgenstein [and the Little Book of Bullshit], you'll see that bla bla...
Me: So you've characterised a whole nation in one sentence. Right. Well, you're wrong about this and–again–please don't correct me unless I'm wrong. I'm done with this discussion because you're disrespectful and we're going in circles.
Mrs Buttwad: Shut up.
Me: Very mature. Thanks for explaining things you have no idea about.
Mrs Buttwad: Well, I'm glad I saved you from the ignorance. [My jaw hits the keyboard at this point.]
Me: Yeah, good thing you know better than all the experts in the world.
Mrs Buttwad: That's better. Now you still have to mean it and then mind it. For your sake.

Photo Diary

The family came over for a visit. This is what our weekend was like.

The girl from the park.

My apartment's right across a park so sometimes I'll sit on the balcony and look around.

I'm not the active type, you see. I'll park my arse on the camping chair, sip gin and tonic, and observe (although not in a creepy way). There's a lady walking her dog, two girlfriends sweating off with a personal trainer, couples running in circles, kids playing cricket, two mates catching a frisbee, a dad and his son chasing a football.

And there's this girl. She's always around the edge of the park, and I only rarely see her. I should say I barely see her. I hear her.

She swoops from one leg to the other as if unsure of which way to go, clutching onto her music player with both hands. It looks like a CD player more than a mobile phone, which reminds me of me looking at the cassette player in the same way older generations used to gaze at the gramophone with melancholy in their eyes and their heart.

So the girl walks around the park, but she doesn't get far. She sings out loud and she's got a beautiful voice, which makes me think why she has to leave her place to sing. Sing in a park.

I'd hear her in between cars driving past or while doing the dishes. I can't make out what the song is, but it sounds amazing.

Well, it did. I haven't heard her in a long time.

Rant at the tip of my tongue (but I'll talk about my vacation instead)

I feel like a rant's due, but it's just not coming out. Maybe there's too much going on in my head, and I'm fairly busy at work, so I can't even find the time to commit to it.

Sleep eludes me. It started off with jet lag and turned into long, drowsy and rainy days, sleepless nights and very, very troublesome mornings.

The other morning I slept through two alarms, until a third one went off in the living room. Needless to say, I was late for work and the whole day turned into a busy, yawning blur. I did manage to do heaps of work, but when I get home and am supposed to rest and recuperate, productivity seeps through by fingers.

My recent trip to the Middle East and Europe went well – and in a blink of an eye. Dubai was amazing! Even though it's not a place I'd visit for the sake of it, one has to be impressed by what's been raised out of the sand. Everything's nice and clean; the people are beautiful and there's not a single crease on their clothes; it's all about shopping and bling and power. There are a lot of issues with the Emirates, but I wasn't going to surround myself with that and decided to enjoy what I could.

I left my things at the hotel (Emirates paid for it as I had a 17-hour layover), took a shower and took the Metro into the city. It took me ages to get through the Dubai Mall (the largest in the world – not my cup of tea) before I went on top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

After five hours up there, it was time for dinner, a swim in the pool and a bit of sleep before my flight to London, which was–as always–so much fun. I managed to meet up with some mates and even run into one (who had no idea I was there) in the streets. Walking around, having beers and getting rained on is something I'd always go for.

Croatia was...nice. I guess home always comes with everything else attached, so the feelings are always a bit mixed. It was definitely nice to spend time meeting up with family and friends, festivalling around the country, camping and running into people. I wish the weather was a bit better as I only managed to take three swims, but hey – another island ticked off the map, so I'm happy.

Portugal was fun, relaxing, intensive, hot, interesting, charming and much more. Lisbon is so cozy and narrow. Boom Festival was mind-blowing, so I'm definitely planning to go back in two years.

A short visit to Vienna to see my mate and it was time to go. It was cold and rainy, which made Australian winter a better choice (what's up with the weather, aye?!).

A flight attendant, originally from Bosnia, approached on the last, 11-hour leg of my trip and saved my day. Wherever you are, bless!

Next time I travel so far for vacation is going to be:

• a week of family and friends,
• two weeks of festivals and mates, and
• three weeks on a tiny island somewhere far away.

So, time to plan starts...now!

(I haven't even gone through all the photos, so this is only what I found on flickr. I hope you've enjoyed it...)

I'm back. And busy at work. Will write soon.

I'm off.

Australia–UAE–UK–Croatia–Portugal–Croatia–Slovenia–Austria–UK–UAE–Australia.

Hasta la vista!

Lexophilology

"Lexophile" is a word used to describe those that love using words in rather unique ways, such as "you can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish", or "to write with a broken pencil is pointless." A competition to see who can come up with the best one is held every year.

This year's winning submission is posted at the very end.

When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate. 
A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months. 
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles U.C.L.A. 
The batteries were given out free of charge. 
A dentist and a manicurist married.
They fought tooth and nail. 
A will is a dead giveaway. 
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress. 
A boiled egg is hard to beat. 
When you've seen one shopping Centre, you've seen a mall. 
Police were called to a day care Center where a three-year-old was resisting a rest. 
Did you hear about the fellow whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now. 
A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired. 
When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds. 
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine is now fully recovered. 
He had a photographic memory which was never developed. 
When she saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye. 
Acupuncture is a jab well done. That's the point of it.
 
And the cream of the wretched crop:
Those who get too big for their pants will be exposed in the end.

A winter update

Winter's here. It came a while ago.

A winter that would make you laugh. It's 16°C at the moment. My mate G and I call it not-summer, as we spent big chunks of our lives living in Europe.

This is not winter. But it doesn't mean it's not cold, especially since I've apparently gotten spoilt rotten by the hot weather here.

The flowers are blooming, the chilli plants on my balcony are sprouting all over again and the cloudy sky is coloured dreamily every night.

Night means five o'clock. No daylight saving means it's pitch black at 17:30. Shower means five days of torrential rain. The temperature at night goes down to 2°C – and then it's 20 all over again during the day.

People are scraping off frost off their windscreens in the morning and jogging shirtless in the arvo¹.

It's ridiculous. It's 15 and I'm jumping into a hoodie and thick socks. I am ridiculous. As people are migrating to the coast in Croatia, I've migrated onto my lounge and developed a relatively close relation with my duvet².

Am I going to have to get used to cold weather again after spending two years getting used to insanely high temperatures?

This is silly.





¹ Arvo is Australian for afternoon.
² Duvet is Australian for quilt.

Fall in Perth

It's proper autumn here in Perth. Winter's coming soon (seasons start on the 1st of March, June, September and December) and I can feel it. Maybe I've gotten spoilt by the hot summers and–for the lack of a better word–mild winters.

The leaves are falling down from the trees, and it instantly urges me to drop everything I'm doing and run through them, resulting in everyone normal out there looking at me like I've gone bonkers. Maybe I'm still a kid deep inside, even though I feel like a grandpa on the outside.

Europeans are excited about summer's approach (despite the floods, storms, earthquakes etc), and here I'm thinking how I'll make it through the winter. Winter, to be fair. I've been waiting for the time when I can actually wear long sleeves and cosy up in my hoodies, but I just hope I won't regret it in a couple weeks' time.

But I'll be going for holidays in Croatia soon enough, and it's going to be summer there. Counting the trips back and forth between continents, I will have had seven summer in a row. I know a couple of people who'd slap me right over my face if I told them that. Different places–different summers though.

An update from the Desert

I’m out bush for the weekend – no work over Saturday and Sunday. Not that’s a rare sight. I’m out for a ten-day field-work trip spread out over fifteen days. The usual, I hear you say... Even though I have a bunch of small things to sort out during this time, it's still nice to be able to kick back and relax – even for a short while.

It's been a weird couple of months. Insanely busy, but also alarmingly edgy. As I've ranted before, I was supposed to go on a trip for my birthday (just to take a couple of badly-needed days off), but the whole trip got cancelled due to a cyclone. I went to Bali for a couple of days after that, but don't tell me it covers for it – it doesn't. Not that I'm ranting...but I am.

Anyway, having gotten home early to go out on this trip, I will have been out of the office for almost a full month. People are telling me I work too hard. I feel that I am working a lot, but when your busy-as co-workers point it out, it must've come to a serious point. They were really happy to hear I was taking a couple of days off – and were as bummed out as me when it didn't happen.

And now it's all busy and it doesn't look like it's getting any calmer (right at this moment there are a couple of Caterpillar pieces of heavy machinery getting refuelled right next to my window as I'm enjoying the fresh air). I'll be going back to Croatia in what is now less than three months' time. I've got a bunch of things to sort out before that, which might prove to be a but tricky, as my calendar and I have obviously gotten in a bit of a fistfight (for the record, I was never notified).

There just seem to be too many things going on. There's definitely too much going on in my head. I can see myself taking one of those courses. You know, the one that makes you more assertive, stand up for yourself, learn to let go and stuff. Like in American movies, yeah.

Anyway, there's chillout music playing, the Sun in shining, and I'm enjoying a cup of ginger and lemon tea. It's all good.

Yupp.

I've really had enough now.

Two days of leave taken. Four days of holidays planned. Flights booked, hotel booked, daytrips booked.

Ita.

Everything cancelled.

A birthday in the company of sore back and diarrhoea.

Yeah, I'm still alive and all that, but give me a break.

My itinerary

I just got back from an eight-day bush trip.

My itinerary for the next couple of weeks is:

• finish off last bits and pieces at work
• early birthday drinks with mates
• fly up to Far North Queensland tomorrow night
• snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef
• fly back home on Tuesday
• a couple of days in the office
• Friday off
• fly to Bali on Saturday
• enjoy surfing (I hope), the view and the pool
• fly back from Bali on Friday
• fly out bush on Sunday
• spend two weeks in the Desert
• fly back home 14 days later

and then it's mid-May.

Crazy, innit?

On the road.

Enough

I've had enough. A break would be well received. Soon.

Attention, all passengers...

I have so many things on my mind that it's hard to relax. That's not usually a problem I have. I don't have issues with lazing on the couch until my back hurts. I really don't. I just reshuffle.

Well, as long as my brain isn't over-analysing everything. That's what it does when it's time to go to bed.

The funny thing is I obsess about stuff that would give other people basis to say yupp, he's gone bonkers. It's sort of a first-world-problem thing, I guess.

What if I get this flight instead of that one?

These three-for-ten-dollars corn chips are a bargain, but I like the other ones more.

It's embarrassing when I realise it and it makes me dislike myself. Why am I spending my time thinking about that?

Of course, it's really hard to talk to people about it, when they're struggling with hospitals and mortgages and shitty families. I just feel like a giant douchebag.

What is it they say – an idle mind is the devil's playground? Well, why the hell is mine like that? It's not idle – that's for sure. It's even worse, because instead of rethinking important stuff, it's struggling to solve trivial things.

I need to sort things out with people, let them know how I feel and what I think, and thus make sure I have less grey hair and fewer stomach cramps in the future. I need to tell people what I find utterly unacceptable and why I think I have a reason to get annoyed. I should chop down my Facebook friends list from 550 to 50, and make sure I surround myself with people I have respect for and who make me grin when I think of them.

And the only thing on my mind is how many extra frequent flyer miles is that?

A photo update from the Northern Territory

Cheers from Sydney...

I'm loving this city!

Random snapshots aka summer in Perth

Embarrassement terrible

It's been so long since I posted anything and it's starting to bug me. Given that I'm at work – taking a break from reviewing a 105-page report – you can imagine to what extent it's actually bugging me.

I just don't know where the time flies and why I can't find any to commit to the things I like. Lately, it's all been about sitting on the couch and staring at the TV. Numbing the pain perhaps.

Lombok was amazing, I'm off to Sydney in two days, but in the meantime (maybe at the airport), I'll try to write a bit more. Sometimes I'm on the train and I wish I could just post my thoughts directly to the blog, because by the time I'm home, it's all gone.

Disliking Murphy's and all similar laws at the moment...

But my Lombok photos are next on the list – hopefully before I end up with hundreds of Sydney photos added to the list. Life's tough, isn't it?

Here's just a quick preview – a photo from Lombok. And yes, that's me. With Bali's Gunung Agung volcano in the background.



Cheers, all!

Lombok

Just a quick greeting from Indonesia: selamat!

And yes, that's me swimming there, with the volcano named Gunung Agung in the background.

On a lighter note...

...enjoying the festival season in the Southern Hemisphere.

Movies and life

Do you remember watching all those movies when you were younger and thinking to yourself there's no way he got that much mail?

Today's mail

Well, if you don't – I do. And it used to annoy the hell out of me. Just like all those horror movies, where someone would simply cut the power, slide the window and massacre the whole family.

Well, that mistery's been solved, too.

You see, electrical and water switches are accessed from the outside here. You'll see switches in the front yard or just outside the front door.

The windows screech and slide, and the isolation is not that good. The glass is thin, the air whooshes when it's windy (and it's always windy)...

So, cut the power, get inside and go nuts.

Sweet dreams!

Back from the Desert

I'm back. Well, not quite. But I'm getting there.

Physically, I'm in a mining town, an hour's flight away from Perth. Mentally, I'm back out bush, reliving days, hours and seconds.

I'm back. Tired, bruised and humbled. Over 4,000 km crossed in two weeks, and I feel years older.

In the last fortnight, I've felt thrilled, annoyed, happy, helpless, proud, hopeless, satisfied, over-strained, trapped, lonely, supported, limitless, overwhelmed... And that's just a portion of the spectrum.

I've learned a lot, not all of which was enjoyable. But I guess there are benefits to learning from your mistakes. It doesn't always feel nice, but – in the end – it's all for the good.

I don't know what to expect. Back to reality. Being back, I'm afraid life will be boring. 

But am I back? Or was I back when I was back there?

Baksuz

A lovely, untranslatable word that pictures me.

Just to paint the picture, here's an example:

Working out bush, I get a lot of flat tyres. Burnt country, tree stumps, and bingo.

Not one gets – I get. Because it's pretty much only me who gets them.

And after six days of driving around, bush-bashing and changing tyres on a daily basis, today was the first day I managed to go without one.

So proud. Everyone celebrated.

Until I got back home, that is. Or almost there. Dropped one of my clients off, started driving home (it's about 50 m) and had a flat tyre.

Baksuz, baksuz.

Desert life – or at least a glimpse of it

I'm out bush for three weeks. One week's gone by, I'm at the end of the second one, and there's still one coming up. If I was asked to sum it up in a couple of words, it would probably be: full on.

Don't get me wrong – the experience is priceless, but the stakes are high, too. It takes everything out of you: your energy, strength and sleep, but also your ignorance, attitude and prejudice. You're deemed to change your views, your ways and your approach – at least if your aim is to make it.

I'm sure lots of whitefellas passed through here and headed out with the first light. It doesn't amaze me that people are hesitant to share their lives, thoughts and emotions. But at least it's all transparent, and you pretty much know where people stand. It's not always pleasant, but that's what it's like.

Even just getting a glimpse of the life (even as a total outsider), I can see how hard life is here. It really takes everything out of you – but it also rewards you in many ways. When you go into the store and everyone greets you by your name; when kids yell after you when you're leaving and asking you to stay; when you wake up in the morning and everyone's waiting with smiled on their faces...

Simple life.

I'm back where my heart is...

'Inside Australia'

I had enough time to take a detour on the way back from my last bush trip, so I finally checked out Lake Ballard. It's always on the way back, but I rarely have any free time – which luckily wasn't the case this time.

Lake Ballard was chosen by Antony Gormley, the internationally-acclaimed British artist, as the site for a major environmental art installation which he titled “Inside Australia”. Gormley had been commissioned by the Artistic Director of Perth International Arts Festival to produce the work in celebration of the Festival’s 50th anniversary in 2003. 

'Inside Australia' comprises 51 metal figures, dotted across seven square kilometres of the salt-encrusted lake bed. Each of the sculptural figures, both male and female, are the result of 3D laser scans Gormley made of Menzies residents, and he refers to them as ‘insiders’. It's apparently completely obvious which sculpture represent whom.

The place is quite eerie in a way, and it makes one wonder how people have been moving and walking and surviving...

Morning Coffee

Survey – done. Coffee – ready. Report writing – hit me.

The Daily Pinch

Moving to Australia pretty much changed my life. It's funny when things you dream of come true.

Just like the day I passed my final exam. Or the day I graduated. Crossed the street and had a cup of coffee. Just like any other day.

It hits you later on. And then you kind of forget what it felt like. Especially nice things, which sucks, because you remember the bad ones a long time.

Waking up every day to the song of parrots puts things in a different perspective. Days may be long, hard and too hot, and weekends may be busy, cloudy and too short. But I remind myself – not every day, but whenever I can – of where I am and what I do.

I saw this new series on the TV, and it made some feelings stir up inside me. This incredible awe and cluelessness, respect and admiration...

I walk on the same sand people walked on 50,000 years ago. I work with some of the last people to have walked out of the desert, I learn new ways – but the ways that have been present for tens of thousands of years.

Makes you think of your high school history lessons, doesn't it? It makes me remind (and keep reminding) myself of my new life...

Google it, watch it, share it.

Leaving...

Driving back from the desert, I have a weird feeling in my stomach. It's one of those you're not really familiar with.

It hurts, but it shows you that something good's happened. Something important and valuable. Nevertheless, it's news to me.

Something inside me changed. Something in the air changed. It might've only affected the air in my head. But it has.

Too late or too early, I'm not sure — but it's here. That feeling of belonging. Of finding your place. And of having to leave it.

It's that bitter-sweet gut feeling that makes you nauseated and shed happy tears at the same time. But I'm not by myself, and I can't stop on the side of the road and gaze back into what I'm leaving behind.

Spring in Australia

Spring has finally come to Australia. After a long and cold winter, here it is! Even though winter in Australia is nowhere near cold and should be called not-summer (as my friend G would say), I have a feeling people have had enough of rain and cold.

The temperatures here don't go lower than 2 degrees Celcius or so, but because there's no heating and the isolation is quite bad, it gives you the chills all right. After three weeks of pretty much crappy weather in Croatia, I came back to the Western Australian spring, to pretty much similar weather.

According to the Noongar cycle (Noongar are the native tribe in present-dayPerth and its surroundings), we're in the middle of Djilba over here, which runs through August and September, and is described as a mixture of wet days with increasing number of clear, cold nights and pleasant warmer days. The Noongar calendar has six seasons, rather than the four that were imported by European settlers.

I found a news article that says:

...intriguingly, it's not the calendar, or even necessarily the prevailing weather, that largely determines the Noongar seasons. Rather, it's the emergence of various plants and animals that dictate how and where traditional owners would have gathered their food.

Professor Len Collard, a researcher at the University of WA's School of Indigenous Studies, says that the Djilba season literally translates as the 'grassy time', when the preceding months of rainfall are reflected in the wealth of vegetation now growing. In turn, that paves the way for Kumbarang, or the "time of plenty", when young birds are fledging and wildlife is abundant.

Traditionally, Noongars would have relied on this kind of seasonal knowledge to inform their hunter-gathering strategies. For instance, rainy weather means kangaroos have higher levels of worms, which makes kangaroo-hunting a bad idea at this time of year. Similarly, emu eggs will have already passed the edible stage. In short, "nature governs", Professor Collard said. Although few people live hunter-gatherer lifestyles today, the principle could also help to teach us how to fish or hunt in a sustainable way, he added.

For instance, "it's not in our interest to be killing the mother duck while she's sitting on the eggs, because then the eggs might not survive and we won't have as many ducks the next year".

The Noongar seasons may also be better at highlighting the changes to our environment being wrought by climate change, Mr Cook said.

Check the link for the complete article: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/lovely-djilba-weather-were-having-a-guide-to-the-noongar-seasons-20130911-2tkm7.html#ixzz2gobA1cQv.

Lovely, isn't it? And so simple. It makes me think...

I'm lying in my bed, lazying around on a Saturday morning, and the blinds are down. I know it's shitty weather outside again. It's not about the clouds and the rain, but the wind. It blows through your bones. Cold winds blowing from the south make me not wanna go out, but hide under the covers.

But here's a couple of spring photos. Walking to work, I run into these crazy little flowers and amazing blooms, some of which I've never seen before. Enjoy!

Also, I finally planted a little herb garden on my balcony, and already had some rocket, basil and chives in my food. Yum!

And a couple more photos of spring life...