OK, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately. The other day I went out and purchased a new computer game called Battlefield Vietnam. I used to be a big Counterstrike fan, that was until the company who made the game introduced Steam as a client front-end and everything went down-hill from there.
I had installed Steam/Counterstrike on my by-gone Windows install, and it worked ok for that. Once I changed operating systems over to Gentoo Linux I started using WineX/Cedega to run my windows games, and this required a reinstall of Steam/Counterstrike. The reinstall worked fine, that was until I tried playing it online, which didn’t work because I couldn’t remember my password for my Steam account. Not even the secret question for password retrieval was the same as I normally set it to so I have no way of using Counterstrike now, online at least which is the only way I like to play. I had tried to make a new Steam account, but that didn’t work because each CD-Key for Counterstrike can only be used for one Steam account (to stop piracy).
So now, Counterstrike is basically useless. Because of this I have been on the lookout for a good replacement for it. That’s when Rob gave me a demo of Battlefield Vietnam. After mulling it over for a few days I decided it would be nice to be able to play online with friends again in what little spare time I have remaining, so I went to EB Games and bought it with some of the money I got back on Tax.
Today was Melly’s birthday! This morning I woke up early even though it was a day off, I drove to McDonalds, baught her some breakfast, came home, made her some coffee, and then presented her with breakfast in bed. Not long after she opened her presents, Freaky (Steve) came over to do some work on my Sister’s car, and later on we went birthday/grocery shopping.
I love Melly’s birthday, even more than I love my own. I value the chance to spoil my girl rotten and treat her like an extra extra special princess for the day… all other days she’s just an extra special princess… my princess!
Tonight we went out for dinner at La Porchetta. I remembered reading on Greeny’s blog that the food there was good, and he wasn’t half wrong! We had a great time, the environment was nice and casual, but the food was delicious… I just love gourmet pizzas!!!
Unfortunately though, today ends the celebrations of our good month. After our anniversary, my birthday and now Melly’s, September’s string of celebrations comes to a close. Oh how I look forward to more happy times next spring!
If you have a sec, visit Mel at PsychoKitten and wish her a Happy Birthday… by my clock you still have 14 minutes… quick… run!
Last September, while Mellissa and I were on our honeymoon, we had planned to go horse riding. Unfortunately there were no horse riding businesses that looked like they would be worthwhile in visiting on the Gold Coast. Subsequently we decided to do it another time, and concerned ourselves with other activities while we were there. Since then though Mellissa has really had her heart set on going horse riding, so we did a bit of research and she decided on a place down near Gatton that we could visit. The whole idea was that it would be a part of her birthday present from me and so I was looking forward to sharing the time with her as much as she had been looking forward to the actually horse riding. Melly’s been dreaming about this for a year now, and you should have seen her sweet little face this morning when she woke up, it was so adorable with her look of anticipation and I felt really happy that I was about to give her an experience that she had been eagerly looking forward to for so long.
It’s Thursday night, 9th of September. The time is around 6 in the evening. My mobile rings, it’s my sister Beth, she is in tears as she asks if she can come over. After about 10 minutes she arrives, still very upset from whatever had happened and after taking some time to settle down she started to tell us the whole story.
Beth works as a host for a “christian” radio station here in Toowoomba (The Light FM… watch and see how ironic this name is.), and Thursday night had been booked as her last night as she has plans to move to another radio station in a different city. She had organised that she was going to do her last show live instead of having it prerecorded. Beth got permission from the person overseeing her program (Dave, who also happens to be her house-mate) 6 weeks prior to the scheduled event. Everything was organised and she had been looking forward to it for some time.
Micah 6:8 - “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
These past few days have been adrenaline inducing to say the least. So many instances of people acting unjustly towards people in my circle have occurred this week, it’s just not funny. If there’s one thing that fires me up more than injustice it’s when the unjust act is being perpetrated towards someone I value.
Last week my good friend Peter decided he wanted to take a trip down to Sydney. Pete works with me, so in order to go away he put in for some time off. Since Pete and I are both casual employees, we can take time off whenever we need, only we don’t get paid for it. Anyway, Peter had been rostered a shift that would have stopped him from being able to go away so he swapped it with Michelle, a girl at work. After they filled out all the relevant paperwork they faxed it off to rostering and the shift swap was approved! Peter subsequently took his trip to Sydney.
This past week has been really nice. On Sunday it was Father’s day and Darcy (our cat) and Gypsie (our dog) gave me a present (M&Ms) for being a good dad. On Monday it was our 1st wedding anniversary, and after exchanging gifts in the morning I toddled off to work, sent some flowers to Mellissa from work, and then later in the evening I took her out to dinner at The Highland Fling. Today it is my birthday. I’m now 24. I was woken up with breakfast in bed by my darling wife (after a long sleep in), I opened up the lovely presents she gave me, I received a call from Mark (brother in law) wishing me a happy birthday, and later this afternoon we shared an afternoon tea with Beth (my sister), my Mum and Dad, and Mellissa’s Mum. Throughout the day I have received some lovely sentiments from those I have talked to and seen, and received a series of thoughtful gifts which have made my day spectacular. This month is great! I love September, so much has already happened, and we still have Mellissa’s birthday to come!
So I was thinking the other day about life… again. This time it was mostly about the different perspectives from which people view this world. I’ve come to the conclusion that life is terrible. I’ve come to the conclusion that life is great. Basically I’ve come to the conclusion that life is simultaneously both good and bad.
I imagine life like a fishbowl. This fishbowl is filled with water, or at least it was until man sinned. When we sinned we royally screwed ourselves over. It was like someone came along and poured a bottle of oil into our fishbowl and gave it a big stir. Consequently oil and water don’t mix, so the result of this screw-over was a bucket filled with a swirling mixture alternating in bands of oil and water. This concoction is life, and we are like little fishies trying to make it from one side of the fishbowl to the other.
Part way along our journey we might be stuck in the oil which represents life during it’s down times. Later on we may cross into the water, where things may be great for a while. Sure enough though this phase will go as fast as it came and back and forth this little saga will swing until we come to the end of our journey. The one unfortunate thing about being a little fishy swimming through an oil filled fishbowl is that fish can’t synthesise oxygen from oil. So by the time we make it to the other side of the fishbowl we will have swum through so much oil that we will have starved ourselves of too much oxygen, and as such we will die. This, ladies and gentlemen, is life according to my fishbowl analogy.
Again, my conclusion? Life is both awful and spectacular all at the same time. The answer? Get the oil dispersant…. his name is Jesus.