February 2003 Archives

The topic of conversation the other day somehow got to hampsterdance.com and how it had changed since it's glory days. Now there's flash animation, and they sell a CD, and the song has been remixed. It was kind of disappointing because we wanted to show someone the original "old skool" hampsterdance. They have a page that's just got all of the dancing hampsters of old - but the music was changed, not nearly as annoying as it once was, and the original was nowhere to be found.

Thankfully, today a friend sent me a link to emotioneric.com (which is worth wasting your time one) that had the original song tucked away on the site. Naturally I took it.

dedodedo.wav (107k).

So with a little patience once could reconstruct the original hampster dance. I won't bother because that's a waste of time even for me (translation: expect to see it in a few days).

I had hoped that trusty old purple.com could withstand the internet's drive for profit, but sadly no. There's an FAQ and pricing for leasing purple.com per month (five grand).

Oh well. With a domain name of no discernable value and uncertain origins, there's little risk of that happening here.

Damnation, that song won't get out of my head!

I saw the house from Fight Club today. Not the actual house (this is seattle after all) but one that could have passed for it quite easily. Quick pictures first then some description.


The house is listed for sale as having good structural integrity and the perfect "project" house. What they don't mention is that it doesn't have such interior fineries as several walls or a hot water heater. Or a working bathroom. Or a kitchen (it doesn't lack a clean or working kitchen, it's missing the entire room).

Nor, I suppose, does it list the many things that come free with the house:

• 9 chest-of-drawers of varying sizes.
• Two very old console style televisions, and three tube radios.
• Assorted musical instruments (horn, violin, gramaphone).
• Assorted Toys (sled, several cap guns, bow and arrow set).
• Assorted Porno. Of course you have your standard vintage Playboys from the 60's (some didn't even have a year, just "august" as the issue date), but lest the ladies feel left out there were a couple of issues of "Dude" and "Wet Sheets" scattered about.
• Lots of old magazines and books of the non-pornographic variety.

It's the last item that really leads me to compare this place to the house out of fight club, well that and the state of disrepair. In one of the upper rooms there was a stack of Life magazines from lord knows how long ago and sitting next to it were three boxes of various human anatomy books. I kept thinking "I am Jack's lower intestine...".

I didn't actually get a chance to jot notes as I went around, but other things that caught my eye and I remember (I like lists):

• single broken toilet with kitty litter box next to it in the furnace room - convenient.
• Holes in the walls, floor, ceiling for easy access.
• Why run electrical wiring through the walls when it can just as easily be stapled to the outside?
• A house really does need two work shops, neither of which have outside access.
• The amount of porn is truely disturbing given then only photo we found in the house was of a 60 year old woman.
• The mail slot empties onto the stairs about halfway up the first flight.

I think whoever first built this house was playing a collosal joke on whoever first bought it.

Well I'm back home after about 36 hours of dealing with planes and delays and all of that. My internal clock is pretty well screwed up but Ed was "kind" enough to help me on my way resetting it. I stayed awake until around 4:00am and then forced myself to sleep. He came into my room at 10 this morning and shouted "WAKE UP". I didn't like the lack of sleep, but it will help me be less completely out of it for work tomorrow. Bah, work.

Anyway, wrapping up the trip just a couple of things that I either forgot to mention along the way or whatever:

Lynn and David were an older british couple we met in Cairns. They were very outgoing to the younger crowd and sort of fit in. Lynn especially was quite affectionate with a couple of the guys, it seemed odd in an indescribable way. A little later Tim and I figured that they may be swingers. I don't know if they are or not (I never really decided to ask), but if not they sure come across like it. Ignoring that they were a nice couple to hang out with - and they bought a couple of rounds when they did go out with us so not all bad :)

Tim and I witnessed a very interesting exchange between an aboriginal couple while sitting at a cafe in cairns. The conversation itself wasn't terribly interesting - especially since we couldn't understand the language. It's just the image of this older guy in an open button-up red shirt walking away from this woman screaming at the top of her lungs. A woman with a full beard. Bushy, long, streaks of grey in it, this was a full on beard. Every other part of her appearance made us pretty sure she was a she, just the beard. No pictures sadly, didn't want to risk the wrath.

This trip taught me how to pack - more specifically what I packed this time to never take on a trip to a summery tropical continent again. Jeans and a sweater will be the first to go, but beyond that:

• The tripod was handy for 6 shots in total, of which I probably could have faked it with a rock or something so tiny tripod or none at all next time.
• Don't bother with the gameboy or other such gadgets (excepting music devices), but do bring books - you can exchange them at hostels easily enough once you're done with them.
• a bowl a spork and maybe a cup is all you need, everything else is pretty redundant and takes up too much space.
• USE A BACKPACK. I took a duffle so I could carry home large things but bought things too large to fit in that duffle so had to end up buying another larger duffle. Two large duffles are not fun to travel with. I won't make that mistake again.
• Finally, wrinkle-resistant multi-purpose clothes are your friend. The pants that zip into shorts are a godsend, would be better as that nylony stuff rather than cotton though.

And finally, while in the irish pub in cairns the music video to the dance/techno remix of "Little Less Conversation" came on. I really liked the song and the video was of some kind of underground football (soccer) championship so was rather entertaining. However in all of these pubs that show music videos they always cut off the last bit of the video to show ads for upcomming shows or drink specials so I didn't get to see who won! Well with a bit of help from Kazaa I snagged the video. A reduced size version is available for your viewing pleasure here (9 megs).

So in conclusion; hell of a lot of fun, a ton of great people, several friends I'll keep in contact with, and a real desire to return very soon. The culture and climate suit me just perfectly, a nice blend of laid back with still a bit of drive. I'd like to return to work and live for a year - and hey, if our schmuck president gets re-elected I'll probably just emmigrate.

Here is the quick run down of what's happened, it's commical to everyone includind myself so feel free to laugh at me. This is the short version, longer can be related in person.

I try and stay later to go visit dawn, I am unable to.

I arrive early to check in to my return flight, it's delayed 10 hours, I think maybe I can use this as leverage to allow me to delay my flight.

Call Qantas, they say I can delay my flight, I've been able to this whole time you just had to read the rules right. I'm happy. I call Dawn. She's happy.

I set about delaying my flight. Dawn calls back, says she doesn't want me flying cross country just to holiday with her. She says sorry if kissing me confused things (I'm easily confused).

I think about it for a while, I may be able to just chill with her and niamh, but not just yet (it always takes me about a week to get unconfused). Tell her, she's sad but understands. We'll talk later and I still want to come back soon so will see her and others then - easier this way.

Throughout this I've been mentioning what's going on to all around me. At the end I come off as an incurable romantic. Three young women smile at me sympathetically. One invites me up to her hotel room for wine. At this point I realize where I've ended up and I laugh.

Rollercoasters have nothing on this segment of my life :)