A few of a recently took a random (random in that we went largely due to the availability of cheap airfares when we hadn’t been considering travelling at all let alone the particular destination; a certain amount of planning did go into the trip after initial conception of the idea) trip to Surfer’s Paradise on The Gold Coast in Queensland.
Flights were reasonable, no major difficulties were encountered and the accomodation was excellent; a good time was had by all.
Day 1 - getting there:
9 of us meant multiple drivers to reach the airport. I drove one car, picking up Nat, Tyle, Brooke and Ro on the way and parked in long-term parking at the airport. Thanks to Steve’s mum for dropping off (including picking up Sean from work on the way) the others at the airport. We were pre-checked in for this flight and avoided most of the potential queueing involved with flight as a result. Upon arrival we settled into our two rooms on the top floor of the Centre Point Hotel, purchased a few supplies — mostly of the alcoholic variety — and settled into one of the rooms for some drinking games and general hanging out before heading off to bed for the night.
Day 2 - Dream World:
First full day there we got up in the morning, got some coffee for a few folks and headed off to catch the bus to Dream World for a day of awesome rides. An Ibis tried to steal my hotdog at the themepark. That evening we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for an excellent dinner and drinks before heading back to our rooms to have a few quiet drinks and watch people we could see in the windows or on the balconies of neighboring hotels; slightly creepy, but entertaining none-the-less.
Day 3 - Wet ‘n Wild:
Second full day there we headed to Wet ‘n Wild (where the picture above was taken) for another day of cool rides and a bit of sunburn.
Day 4 - Ice Ice Baby:
Last day we checked out of our rooms in the morning and left the majority of our stuff in lockers at the hotel before heading out for some exploration. Vanilla Ice was doing a little meet-and-greet session at the Hard Rock Cafe, where Sean, Nat and Brooke got photos taken with him. Benjamin and Ro tried a “slingshot” ride, and a few of us tried a fantastic contraption given the alluring name of “The Vomitron”. The flight back was very mildly turbulent, scared a couple of people with louder-than-normal engine noise on take-off but was largely uneventful.
All in all an excellent trip with a good mix of chillaxing and awesome rides, etc. We must do it again sometime, perhaps with a few of those who didn’t attend this time tagging along.
Cara, William and myself went to see Opeth play at the Palace (formerly Metro) on Friday night. The performance was most triumphant. As time of posting interested parties can find a video of the performance on YouTube, although unfortunately the quality is extremely lacking and doesn’t nearly do them justice. For reference, the song in that particular recording sounds like this on the album. The support band were quite good, the venue was quite reasonable and not overly crowded, and the late night KFC after the concert was most enjoyable.
Next up for concerts is DragonForce in October.
Tropic Thunder was quite good, and we had the most unusual experience after seeing it of candle-lit dining in Nandos due to power failure. Fortunately for us they were already mostly done with preparing our food, and we’d long since escaped from the cinema (out of which many people were streaming).
That is all for now.
//ADENDUM: Some random guy taking photos at the Opeth concert got a shot of Cara and I that you can see here (full gallery). As usual I look terrible. Ah well.
So, I’m way overdue for an update, and although I’ve been working away at them I’ve fallen way behind on the personal projects mentioned and hinted at in previous entries on this blog.
I’m still not really great with people, but I do feel like I’m a little better than a used to be. Certain friends insist that I’m really better than I think I am, but personally I tend to think I do a pretty reasonable job with friends but still manage to be near useless with strangers, which obviously is fairly useless for making new acquaintances. I am still trying to work on this, but I’m really not good at letting go of the safety net that established friends provide and trying to talk to people who I don’t already know.
My arthritis (in combination with some old running injuries) is playing up lately, which is pretty painful and sort of puts a cramp on trying to go out and be social, although I’m trying not to allow it to effect me too badly.
There’s a few things left to do but a few small changes not withstanding (mostly layout tweaks) this is my new blog. I’m now powered by WordPress and am using Nearly Free Speech hosting, and shall be attempting to post either weekly or fortnightly depending on how I go at keeping up weekly updates containing actual content. Content will vary and will include personal thoughts and musings, attempts at arranging social gatherings and such much like my older blog for those who have read it, but will also from now on include progress updates on my game development projects and thoughts on programming libraries and tools. Excerpts of programming/game related posts will be mirrored at my GDNet journal for the convenience of folks who frequent that site.
I also intend to publish small articles to this site from time to time, the first of which is almost complete at the moment.
For any who may be wondering, the title (”unrefined awesome”) is a reference to the fact that I also own www.weaponsgradeawesome.com, although as of my time of writing there’s not yet anything there. I shall explain in further detail what I intend to do with that url at a later stage.
Oh, you may register to post comments if you wish, but for now it isn’t required - you can post as an unregistered user and shall continue to be able to do so unless I encounter any issues that force me to require registration.
Farewell for now.