Occhi stanchi

I went to a Tupperware party last night, which doubled as a bit of a house-warming party for the Frompsons. I even bought some Tupperware, basically for freezing and reheating leftovers. I really wasn't planning on buying anything but there you go.

My birthday planning is going well, I will be 28 on the 2nd July, and I am organising breakfast and dinner on the 2nd, and brunch on the 3rd. I love when my birthday falls on a weekend. I also love dining out with friends and family. On the Sunday I plan to go to the Armageddon pop culture expo after brunch, though I don't know how much of an event it will be, having been rescheduled and reorganised from February's earthquake. I invited like 65 people to dinner on the Saturday, at the moment it looks like I could end up with about 20-25? Biggest birthday ever! Even my 21st only had 12 or so people. I didn't plan for a big 21st though, just a quiet evening out.

I broke my pokermanz, I got greedy and cheated to get more masterballs, now my tm case is corrupted. I can start again and make better decisions now though. Like not cheating.

I haven't made any gamerscore progress for a few days, though the last achievement I got was 100G so that should tide me over. I should do things like find all the damn feathers in Assassin's Creed II, the flags in Assassin's Creed, drive a car 750 miles in GRiD, drive a total of 1000 miles in DiRT.. these are all such tedious goals though. Perhaps I'm better off starting fresh with Mass Effect 2, or giving Fallout 3 another chance. I'm in a bit of a gaming funk but it feels more positive than usual, as if I have too much to choose from, rather than no motivation to play.

We had a 5.4 magnitude shake last night at 10.35pm. It was a lurcher rather than a jolt. It's been four months since February's 6.3m. We had more shakes all through the night, everyone was a little bleary-eyed this morning. I think after June 13's shocks, people were subconsciously waiting for something bigger to follow the 5.4, so sleep was almost impossible to come by.

Despite being tired constantly, I feel pretty good about life. I've stopped saving for a little while, just til after my birthday, so I have a bit of extra cash to spend, I'm getting out there and being more social than I'm used to, I think it's all working for me. Life is what you make it, and if you sit around feeling sorry for yourself... it's a pretty crappy life to be giving yourself.

Stay safe.

Silence

I've met some interesting people over the last week. I went to my first tweetup, a meetup organized via twitter. The only other person I knew who was going to be there had to pull out, so I was essentially meeting complete strangers, heh. They were cool though, they had interesting jobs, one a microsoft employee for the last 10 years, another working at the company who has just won the contract to lay Christchurch's ultra fast fibre network. My twitter list has grown at an alarming rate, but the difference between it and say facebook or msn is that these are real, local, tangible people, that I can physically go and hang out with, have a meal with, get to know. It's... it's exiting to have a reason, or desire, to leave the house again.

Last Saturday I went to the Frompsons' and met another couple of tweeps. We played Scene It, which worked pretty well, but the film clips they kept showing us were of lame movies or movies we didn't know wtf was going on. On Sunday I came down with the manflu though, so I've spent a lot of the last couple of days in bed.

There was a news story today about how geoscientists are predicting a 23% chance of a magnitude 6.0 to 7.0 aftershock to hit the wider canterbury area in the next 12 months. If narrowed down to the city limits it's about a 6% chance. People are panicking and getting upset, but I can't really see why. I mean, we already know there's a risk of aftershocks, considering we're still feeling then every couple of days. We know they vary in size, everyone watches the seismographs. What should people take from this story? 'be prepared', 'be cautious' and 'it's not over.' Surely we already knew all this. I just don't understand the panic.

I guess I've been pretty stoic for a long time though. Que sera, sera.

On a whim I ordered some limited edition Halo 3 miniatures from Weta Workshops, which arrived at work today. They are very cool. I took some photos but only one turned out because it was a bit dark in the room.

I also bought a new guitar, a Fender Squier, which as well as being a fully fledged guitar, is a controller for Rock Band 3. With (a lot of) practice I should be able to play some proper guitar sometime! I bought a little Fender Mustang amp for it as well. That pretty much emptied out my savings. I got a payrise at work today, so I think I will rejig my savings a bit, try and save more than the $30 per week I had been managing. Travel is becoming a real goal for me. I've never been out of the country, and I want to see Ireland, France and Italy before I'm too old to 'do it properly.'

Best get some sleep or I'll never get over this manflu.