Nat’s birthday party

Last night turned out to be an eventful night for me. I had absolutely no plans, until about 6:30 when Chris rang me to see what I was up to. We organised to go out to dinner. While I was getting ready for that, Shane popped up online and invited me over to his place for Nat’s little birthday party.

So first up, I went out with Chris to the Pancake Parlour. :D I’ve been really craving Bavarian Apple since the last time I went. I might have to set aside one night a week for the Pancake Parlour. ;)

That was good. It was pretty busy there – busier than I’ve ever seen there. ‘course, at 7:30 on a Saturday night, I guess that’s to be expected. As always, there were huge queues for the ticket office at the cinemas… I’ve never quite understood why that is. You used to see that very occasionally at Frankston on opening nights and whatnot… at the new AMC cinemas I don’t think I’ve ever seen a queue of more than ten people.

Anyway, Chris & I mostly talked about schoolwork and so forth. He handed in his graphics assignment on Friday. Their assignment is so much cooler than ours was. Theirs is actually 3D for a start. Shock horror. It really isn’t that difficult doing 3D stuff, if it’s just a few basic static models and maybe some terrain… I really don’t understand why non of the so-called “games” subjects at uni seem to ever do it. Once they actually get into more advanced stuff, they switch over to modding UT2004. That’s all good and well, but not every future game is going to be based on UT2004.

After dinner and dropping Chris back home (Sylvia’s place), I headed off to Shane’s. I was only planning on stopping by briefly; I wanted to get back home to finish up some work I’d been doing earlier. But I was surprised to see so many familiar faces there – Egan, Rosie, Hue, Mark, Chris, Adam, and more. All these people from years ago at college that I’ve hardly seen since. It was good to catch up with a few of them, although often the conversation turned to obscure alternative bands, and drinks named after, well, things polite drinks shouldn’t. While hilarious, I was in over my head. They’re definitely country lads, that lot. :)

While I was there I watched a bit of Chaser’s War on Everything, an ABC comedy I’d not previously seen, although I think I’d heard of it before. It was pretty funny… largely just picking on prime time news shows and whatnot, with a bit of sketch comedy thrown in for good measure. It seemed to be a crowd favourite there. There was also one random episode of That 70’s Show, from the 8th series, which doesn’t really seem to have kept the spark alive, sadly. Egan particularly dislikes the show, and spent most of it laughing mockingly.

There was cake, also. It was good. And a BBQ with all sorts… I had a few sausages and burgers, and felt most sick afterwards. :)

So, I’m glad I hung around up this way… I got some actual work done, got a good sleep in, and caught up with all these guys I haven’t seen in ages. Apparently Steve Hamer’s popping down on Monday too, to visit Mark, Shane & Egan, so I’ll try to catch up with him then as well, if I can. Shane said they’d be starting work at 6:30pm, but I doubt Steve’ll be that slack. Hopefully he arrives earlier so I can catch him before I go down to pool [if I do go to pool].

Apparently Steve has graduated, although no one knew until yesterday when Shane rang him. He’s back in woop-woop somewhere, working on the farm. Obviously it’s hard to find tech jobs in rural Victoria… I think he’s aware he’d have to move closer to the city for relevant work, but apparently Ashley (his daughter) is happy where she is. He’s pretty wrapped up in her, so I presume he’ll be staying at her request. She must be about 14 or 15 by now, I would have thought… you’d think she’d be dying to move out of the middle of nowhere and into the city, but, apparently not. Odd.

Shane’s also said he’s keen to organise a big Darkzone night again, like he did a few years ago – they had 40 people or so. I missed the last one, probably because of uni work, but I won’t miss it again. And there’s Darkzone on the 9th as well that I’m looking forward to. Followed, yes, by the Pancake Parlour. :D

But now, today, it looks like I have work to do. It was such a nice day, but it’s only 4:17pm and it’s already nearing dusk. :/ I guess I’ll have to jump in the shower, get the clothes of the line, and go shopping… I’m now down to a jar of peanut butter, half a jar of wildberry jam, and a packet of snakes. I hate snakes. I bought them for the frogs in the ponds I made a few weeks ago, but didn’t end up adding them (mainly because I forgot, but also because I hate them). We could have had eels in the pond. Good thing I didn’t anyway; since I ate half the jelly, I would have just pulled them out and thrown them away anyway.

I like frog in the pond. I think I’ll do that again. And I can actually make it without causing a minor disaster in the kitchen. :D

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