And so another year comes to an end. A year full of highs and lows, but then what year isn't?

Some highlights from my year included:

Just had a Skype chat with Paul.. heya, was nice talking to ya :)

I'm just trying to finish building a bridge for Andrew (a HO scale truss bridge). Have been watching Star Trek IV (which arrived in the post today for my Christmas present from parents) and Star Trek VI cause I was in a trekkie sort of mood.

This afternoon I watched some me little brother's Christmas present - the Best of Bowie. I still maintain that he looks best in the late 80's. I was excited to see Underground and As the World Falls Down, which I'd never seen before - they were the songs from Labyrinth and featured some of the characters from the movie in the video clips. It was also funny seeing some of the dancers and dance moves in some of the other video clips that he used in his Glass Spider concert, which I've had on video for years.

It's truly frightening that my brother is still reading my blog. Most people I know that have told me they've read my blog have read it and then lost interest and that was the end of that. Continued reading is scary. Especially when they drop these hints in front of parents about it *grumble* :�

Anyways I'm going back to building bridges :)

Went and saw Lord of the Rings - Return of the King last night. It was an epic to say the least. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen. The air conditioning got turned off sometime after midnight though, so much of the last part of the movie was watching in a boiling hot, stuffy cinema. Not pleasant at all. Made the multitude of endings that much harder to bear, and everyone was thinking "get on with it" each time a new ending scene started.

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?
hrm. No idea what my biggest accomplishment was. But a recent one was switching to a new faculty print server with minimal disruption and next to no calls in the following week from people not being able to print.

2. What was your biggest disappointment?
Being rejected by dingbat.

3. What do you hope the new year brings?
Getting active directory setup without any disasters. Although that's only two weeks in, haven't thought too much about the rest of the year. A promotion would be nice.

4. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions? If yes, what will they be?
I don't make new year's resolutions. I'd like to learn the piano though.

5. What are your plans for New Year's Eve?
With a bit of luck going to Luc and Cynthia's to watch the fireworks from their place in Pyrmont.

Did the whole family/church thing today. As predicted, I came home with a bag of Freddo frogs. Yes that's right, all I got for Christmas was a bag of Freddos. Well until next week at least anyway. I've been promised two dvds from parents and me little brother left my present at his place. So I came home and had a shot glassfull of Luc's pressie, and built my Hogwarts Castle. Like I said, people should just buy their own presents, would be easier. I'm watching my brother's Christmas present now - well he wasn't going straight home so said I could borrow it. Ironically it's also on free to air tv also at the same time. Silly really.

And I left my camera at parents place. Damned flipping.

Handel's Hallelujah Chorus has to be just about the best sound of Christmas. It just wouldn't be right if they didn't do it at the various Carols by Candlelight shows that air to tv. I missed the one on Saturday night cause I was at Striker's but caught the Melbourne one tonight.

It's looking like I'll be in bed before midnight tonight. More often that not I'm up past midnight and get to see Christmas in early :)

I got a big Christmas present today. A whole stack of lego I got off ebay was all at the post office waiting for me, as well as some chockies from Thorpie. Of course some of the packages had been there since the 3rd of December, and even though I'd asked the post office staff several times since then to check for me, they obviously hadn't bothered, and I got final notices for three things the other day.

This may sound a little selfish, but I reckon people should just go out and get themselves things for Christmas. If everyone just got themselves something nice, then there'd be no hassle of trying to think of what to give people (which I'm utterly hopeless at), and you know it'd get enjoyed by the recipient. Anyways, that's just a thought :) And I'm expecting to not come home with much tomorrow - parents have ordered stuff online and it may not have arrived in time, and my brother left my pressie at home and he won't be home again before tomorrow. Oh well :)

Took this cool photo of some Harry Potter minifigs today. How cute are they? I want to get one of every character.

I managed to get all the printers setup on our new print server except for one, which doesn't have 2003 drivers, and I can't get xp or 2000 drivers to work with it either. It also happens to be a printer that the guys have spent *ages* on trying to make it work in the first place. It's a toshiba, and has caused no end of troubles since the day they bought it. We sit and curse the people that go out and just buy a printer without asking us first. Most of the printers around are HP, with some Xerox. The ones that tend to give us the most troubles are the dodgy-brothers printers like the toshiba, a danka, etc.

I finished the Belgariad tonight. The ending was a nice tie-up of an epic story. I'm sure Sami will be wanting to lend me the Malloreon next :)

There are still quite a few angel eggs. I now have another tank for them to breed in :) This tank has been passed around quite a bit, and now I have it. I still have no idea where I'm going to put the darned thing though, I'm running out of floor/wall space.

It's late.

I was looking at the logs for this site just now. Everything's so much quieter since I changed the url of my blog and it's taken google a few weeks to catch up. I was looking at some of the referal terms that people have put into search engines that have brought them to my site. Would you believe that I'm number one in google for "kambrook timer" ?? I am also number one for "mcdonalds is evil", "dstore e-voucher", "i hate kazza" and "federation starship quiz personality" !! I'm number six for "blog australia strictly aquariums".

23 hours ago I was at drinks at the Corro which was meant to be a reunion of the previous batch of support guys. As it turned out, all three of them piked at the last minute. onya guys. not.

6 hours ago I was on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was fabulous. Although we nearly got blown off - it was blowing an absolute gale. Fortunately it didn't rain, that would have been pretty miserable. Thanks to George for letting me have her ticket.

1 hour from now I'm meant to be at a Christmas party for work. But only one of the guys from our office is going that I know about (well my boss might be also, but he doesn't count cause he doesn't talk to me in social situations), plus being my wonderful partnerless self, and given that this stoopid party is in Mosman, which is a useless place to get to, means I have to drive, by myself, which means no drinking, and I don't think I could face spending the night there with a bunch of people that I really have nothing in common with without at least a decent mugfull of eggnog to keep me going. And have I ever mentioned that I *hate* going places by myself at the best of times?

The alternative is a video night at Striker's, but I'm feeling too depressed about everything to even be bothered with that (sorry Striker). My place looks like a bomb's hit it; I've basically not been home for the past two and a half weeks. The cockroaches, even with me not leaving food around for weeks, live off the sticky gum used to seal envelopes, and who knows what else, and are just as abundant as ever.

So I can go out and get stressed out, or stay home and get depressed. Great choice.

Had a Christmas party today with a bunch of people that I haven't been together with in probably at least 3 years. It was this core of people that mostly used to live locally and go to the same church. Since then it's diverged somewhat, and 10 (!) offspring have been added. The reason I haven't seen several of them much in the past few years was because of something that happened when I was going through some pretty deep depression a few years ago, and two of them rejected me at the time and made me feel even lower, if that were possible. As I've said in previous entries, I have trouble with forgiveness. But I decided I would at least try, and so went along to this Christmas party, which is the first time I've been in the same place with the two of them since that time. So it was all good, I was civil, and even friendly, and basically relaxed (and a beer or two certainly didn't hurt either). Then towards the end of the party one of the girls says to me "I'd like to compliment you - you are happy and friendly blah blah blah". To which I said, well what are you comparing it to, we haven't seen each other more than twice in three years. And she's going well yes you're more happy. Ok so everything I've been trying to forget all comes back to me, and it's like, well if I wasn't happy in your presence before, it was *because* of you and the hurt you caused me. But of course I couldn't say any of that cause I'm too chicken. So I ended up grumpy and pensive after all. *sigh* I should definately have said something.

The night finished off with some of the boys playing xbox, which I was invited to play, but I had absolutely no idea about the game so gave up and left; and then to top off the night the flipping eway toll tag thingie didn't bleep cause the sticky tape died in the heat today and it fell off and I just had the thing on the dashboard. So now I have to chase that up on Monday. Just what I really didn't need.

It's about that time of year when I have to start thinking about Christmas presents for people. I'm utterly hopeless at thinking up presents for people. I tend to prefer asking people what they want, and then just going out and getting it. Vouchers can be good, but are a bit of a non-event and I try to avoid giving them where possible.

I do have a wishlist going, but the things on it tend to be out of the price range that people would give as a gift. For example:

5-way power board with switches
filing cabinet
decent tweezers
new digital camera
john farnham best of cd?
fiddler on the roof cd
car cd player
dvd recorder

And a lot of them have been out of my price range also, hence I don't have them :) Others I've just never gotten around to finding.