Had an overnight trip to Korralbyn to play golf on Anzac day. 6 of us played in the Copperhead challenge from the back tees and it was pretty tough. Some info about the course and how tough it is can be found here. The weekly copperhead challenge from the back tees that we played in gives away a dozen balls just for breaking net par 72 but since 1984 when the comp started they have had just 2% of players collect the free balls!! None of us collected either.

I enjoyed the golf but it was bedlam when we got back to the resort and started drinking. These days I like to control the rate I drink and keep control of my senses. Bad stuff happens when I don't :)The downside of this is that when everyone else is getting plastered and going mental it can be a little testing on your patience. Maybe I'm getting old! One of the guys managed to break the glass top of a coffee table which cost us $50 but it's amazing that was the extent of the damage. The unit looked like a bomb site when I got up next morning!!

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I got Robbie Slater's auto-biography for my birthday and have really enjoyed it. The guy is a bit of a big head plonker and I was expecting not to like the book that much, but he has a really easy to read style that has a lot of interesting behind the scenes info about his time at West Ham and the other clubs he played at.

I'm starting to amass a bit of a sports biography collection. One day I'll collate a list.

Long time no post.

Recent DVD's added to my collection :- 4 disc Spiderman box set, King Ralph, Band of Brothers box set - which I picked up for $36.95 AUD since it was mis priced. What a gritty emotion packed series.

I hit a guy with a golf ball the other day - from 250 metres away it hit him on the ankle on the full..it had to hurt. He was amazingly understanding about it..I would have been way pissed off since he was standing in the middle of his own fairway when it happened. Carded a 90 with 36 stableford points.

Won tickets to see Bruce Springsteen's Brisbane concert last month. Carole is the big fan and wanted the tickets bad, but I had a great time. The Boss just didn't stop for 3 solid hours. He puts so much energy into his concerts it is easy to see why he is still one of the biggest selling live acts around.

Discovered geocaching the other day. Basically people hide stuff and post the gps co-ordinates on the net, you load them into your gps receiver and go find them. Generally each cache has several things in it (with only a small $ value), and you take one thing out and replace it with something you took with you and fill in the log book. Lots of fun. Carole in particular has got right into it.

After buying a $350 shaver with credit card reward points, I can honestly say that no electric shaver is as good as a blade. Here's the one I bought

Played 9 holes in a break in the rain yesterday and although I didn't score well, I am striking the ball as well as ever. That's a bit of a contradiction but I am not far off posting a very low score (by my standards). We were honouring the annual tradition of having a Kenny Young memorial golf day. Kenny was the father of one of my friends and passed away in '96. Each year for the past 7 years about a half a dozen of us get together to remember him.

I'm sure he's up there in a bar somewhere having a beer and a laugh. Cheer's Kenny!!

Picked up the Reservior Dogs SE today. About time it got released in Region 4. Why the bloody hell have JB Hifi started taking the discs out of the cases? I want my discs in the shrink wrap in pristine condition dammit. Scratch another DVD retailer. [pun intended]

Also found some blanks that my tempermental cdr will burn to. Verbatim digital vinyls. Look like a mini LP record.

If the Around the World in 80 Days reference got you reminiscing, you can download Jules Verne's novels here. It's not illegal..old books become freeware after a certain time.

Can anyone explain to me why an xbox can be had in this country for under $300AUD which includes damn good graphics AS WELL AS a hard drive, processor and everything else and yet a decent quality video card for the pc costs as much or in many cases much more????

I'm guessing that the xbox hardware is heavily subsidised because they know you will be buying games @ $100 a pop. Still doesn't make it right...doesn't microsoft put nvidia graphics hardware in the xbox? How can nvidia sell to ms at a fraction of the cost they want consumers to pay for their pc cards? I know it's not apples with apples but it's still fruit. Rotten fruit if you ask me. Fix Tricks, Fix Tricks.

I fixed my pedal with an occy strap. Does the job for now. Did I mention that I can't get enough of GTR 2002?

I bought a copy of F1 2002 on Sunday. You'd think I'd do that because I wanted to play it right? Wrong. I had to have it so that I could play a free mod called GTR 2002 that is based on its physics engine. The mod is based on the real life FIA GT championship from Europe which features Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborgini, Dodge Vipers etc. For a free mod developed out of the goodness of the hearts of 20 or so dedicated enthusiasts, it is absolutely fantastic. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun it is. I have been having a ball with it every night until last night. The spring on one of my pedals snapped and that was the end of that until I can get it fixed. Damn doesn't begin to describe how annoying that is.

it's a short working week but it sure seems to be taking a long time.

I've just spent some time evaluating my DVD collection. Your movies must say something about you. One time I thought about starting a thread on aus.dvd about doing an analysis of people based on the contents of their collections...here's a quick list of mine - you make your own conclusions :-

Alien
Antz
Bone Collector, The
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Braveheart
Brewster's Millions
Contact
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Das Boot
Desperado / El Mariachi
Exorcist, The: 25th Anniversary
Fifth Element, The
Fight Club
Gladiator
Good Will Hunting
Great Escape, The
Heat
Jackie Brown
Jebediaries
Jumanji
Lawrence of Arabia
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Matrix, The
Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The
Moby - Play The DVD
Notting Hill
Paris Concert for Amnesty International
Patch Adams
Perfect Storm, The
Point Break
Prince Of Egypt, The
Pulp Fiction
Red Hot Chili Peppers:Funky Monks
Right Stuff, The
Rounders
Saving Private Ryan
Se7en
Shaft
Shanghai Noon
Snatch
Spartacus
Sting, The
Super Speedway
Superman II
Superman: The Movie
There's Something About Mary
Tomorrow Never Dies
Toy Story 2
U-571
Walking With Dinosaurs

Some of these are embarrassing to own (which doesn't mean I don't like them btw)

Some of these I own and don't even like - buying for appearances?

Which movies would I care about losing in a fire?

I like light hearted comedys but don't own many

What would be really enlightening would be to have accurate figures for how many times I have watched each. Some would be 0. Why even bother taking the shrink wrap off until I watch it?

I know in the early days of home theatre and DVD I used to buy movies because of the quality of the transfer/audio mix/extras with the quality of the movie itself being secondary.

So I'm screwing about in the front yard practicing my golf chipping. I have a dozen real balls (not plastic practice whiffle balls) and a net my wife got for xmas. I'm just bumping them at the net 8 or 10 feet away. Carole comes up and asks to have a go.

"Are you sure you want to try with real balls?"

"Yes of course."

A minute later she's had one swing, one divot out of the front lawn, the ball goes sailing over the front fence and goes bouncing up the road towards a neighbour's car. We both just stand there watching it go..bounce bounce bounce...it didn't hit the car. And Carole didn't hit any more golf balls. :)

My wife just got home with a present for me. New board shorts. She bought them because they were cheap...but I just bought 2 pairs recently. I guess you can never have too many pairs :)

Why

Why have I started a blog? To learn more about myself. To write about something requires that you think about it. When what you are writing about is yourself and your life, then the process of thinking about it may lead to a greater understanding of both. At least that's what I hope :)

About me

My name is Tony and I live in Australia. But rather than give you some great spiel about my hobbies and interests, I'll wait until they pop up in my life and you can gradully find out about me. If they don't pop up in my life then they musn't be hobbies or interests...We'll see what evolves as time goes by.

I'll cover one aspect of my personality today and the others I'll also leave for when they are topical. I'm an obsessive person. By that I mean I get interested in something and I obsess on it. It consumes my thoughts. I dream about it. My web browsing is dominated by it. I buy paraphenalia to do with it. I borrow books from the library to find out more about it. Not sure if it's entirely healthy but it's how I am.

I can't face typing it all over again tonight. I need sleep........

Don't you hate it when you spend an hour typing something up and then lose it? Well that's what just happened to me..my very first blog post and when I clicked Post and Publish I get vbscript errors and can't salvage what I had typed :(