Dziewięćdzieściąt Dziewięć

Hast Du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Denkst Du vielleicht grad' an mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Und dass sowas von sowas kommt

99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt man fuer UFOs aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General
Eine Fliegerstaffel hinterher
Alarm zu geben, wenn es so war
Dabei war da am Horizont
Nur 99 Luftballons

99 Duesenjaeger
Jeder war ein grosser Krieger
Hielten sich fuer Captain Kirk
Das gab ein grosses Feuerwerk
Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft
Und fuehlten sich gleich angemacht
Dabei schoss man am Horizont
Auf 99 Luftballons

99 Kriegsminister
Streichholz und Benzinkanister
Hielten sich fuer schlaue Leute
Witterten schon fette Beute
Riefen: Krieg und wollten Macht
Mann, wer haette das gedacht
Dass es einmal soweit kommt
Wegen 99 Luftballons

99 Jahre Krieg
Liessen keinen Platz fuer Sieger
Kriegsminister gibt es nicht mehr
Und auch keine Duesenflieger
Heute zieh ich meine Runden
Seh die Welt in Truemmern liegen
Hab' nen Luftballon gefunden
Denk' an Dich und lass' ihn fliegen

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku
Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année
Frohe Weinachten und Ein Gutes Neues Jahr
Merii Kurisumasu, Akemashite Omedetou

I've been tagged with a book meme

Aggie has tagged me with a book meme. Here are the rules of this meme:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the book and the author.
5. Tag three people.

Ok, now I'm taking a liberty with rule number one because the closest book to me at the moment is my Collins Robert Paperback French Dictionary, Second Edition, and I think I can find a more literary book. Okay, I'm going to skip the second book too, as Kieszonkowy Słownik falls under the same category.

"Plus he will be saying completely non-sensical things like, "TWO PEOPLE WITH SMALL HEADS ARE NOT THE SAME AS ONE HEADCOUNT!!!" This will make your victim insanely angry, but not at you. You'll be safe and snug in your cubicle yards away."

The name of the book is "The Joy Of Work" by Scott Adams.

Ok, now for step 5, where I get to tag three people. Hmmm... let me think... it's kind of like playing Duck Duck Goose. Ok, I'll tag Kat, Oddur, and Frogbrain. Mostly because they're the only people I know who have blogs and haven't already been tagged.

Byłem z Agatą wczoraj wieczorem

As the title vaguely suggests, I spent the evening with Aggie yesterday. We went to Southbank and wandered around, briefly watching fireworks, and looking at the markets before going to a turkish restaurant for dinner. The food was okay, but nothing special. The entree of fried haloumi was delicious, but the mains weren't quite as good as they could have been, and they weren't cheap either.

Earlier in the day, my school had planned to take the students to Southbank for the annual student Christmas party, but the weather put a stop to that and we had to have the festivities at the school instead. It meant things were a little crowded, as the communal room/student kitchen area is a bit small, but it all worked out well in the end, though we had to cancel the cricket competition due to space restrictions.

Shopping

I was at Carindale today to do some Christmas shopping and then grocery shopping. How exciting.

I have learnt several things about hate. Specifically, things I hate. Yes, there's nothing like the festive season to bring on a good dose of people-hating.

1) I hate people*.
2) I hate young girls who walk around yelling xmas carols at you, and who think they're talented.
3) I hate people who don't stand to one side on escalators.
4) I hate that I'm not allowed to carry a cattle prod to give people the hint that they shouldn't be in my way.
5) I hate xmas carols.
6) I hate people*.

'Tis the season to be jolly.


* excluding friends, who obviously aren't people.

More strange computer behaviour

My computer seems to have problems talking to the windows update site. Each time I log on, the little "updates are ready to download" message appears, and I click on "download" but nothing happens. Are there any simple solutions for this problem, or should I just turn update notification off?

Patience

I'm usually a rather patient person. Well, I am when I'm at work, and therefore paid to be patient. I am occasionally patient in other circumstances as well, depending on the situation. It's a case by case thing. One area in which I show little to no patience is the area of electronic equipment. I get pissed off very quickly when things don't work as they should. In this area I often go from one extreme to the other*.

An example of this is my mp3 player. It never worked particularly well, having a terrible tendency to switch itself off when it wanted - while I was listening to it. I was rather patient with it, dutifully switching it back on each time it happened, even when it only stayed on for 10minutes. I lost my patience with it one day when walking home from the bus stop, after it had switched itself off 3 times on the walk up the hill. The loss of my patience manifested itself in such a way that led to the mp3 player being rendered completely unusable and in many pieces on our driveway. Hence why I need to buy a new mp3 player.

Anyway, the point of this post is to explain why my wireless router** is now on the floor under the table where it usually lives and I'm connected to the net directly rather than through the network. The router will probably still work - I've "argued" with it before because of its issues and I unfortunately haven't caused an excuse to buy a new one yet. I picked up the router by the cable connecting it to the modem, and unplugged the cable, allowing gravity to move the router to the floor. I still haven't found a reason for my router's problem, or a solution and the netgear website was next to useless. I used to think that Netgear produced good quality network items but I'm starting to think that my next router should be a Belkin. Ok, I've calmed down a bit now that I've had a bit of a rant and a vent. How was your day?


* Don't worry about your electronic equipment, I'm only like this with things that I own.
** Regular readers will remember my complaint about my router's habit of cutting off the internet connection whenever it feels like it.

Saturnalia Party

I had my work Saturnalia* Party yesterday afternoon and last night. We kicked the students out of the school at about 12:30 (ish) and then converged on Garuva's in the Valley by about 1:30pm. We were fed and given large quantities of alcohol. The atmosphere was great, and the food was pretty good too. After we finished eating, we moved to the cocktail lounge at Garuva's where we consumed a ridiculously large amount of alcohol, which was all paid for by the owner of the school. This alcohol included cocktails, shots, wine and beer. I think spirits were also available. After many hours there, we decided to move on. Most people piked and went home, but 4 of us carried on to another location that may or may not have been a karaoke venue. Songs that may or may not have been sung may or may not include Kylie's Locomotion, The Village People's In The Navy and ABBA's Fernando, as well as others. After stumbling out of the last location, we decided it was bedtime and I went and crashed at another teacher's place, who lives in New Farm, rather than shelling out for a cab ride home.


* Saturnalia is the correct name for the annual festival many people refer to as Christmas.

Update on mole

I went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon to have the nasty mole on my leg checked out. Apparently it's fine and not dangerous, but there's a slim possibility that it may change in the future, so I need to have it checked every 4 months or so. I was given the option of having it removed anyway, just to get rid of it. Unfortunately, the removal process involves pain, and they won't agree to a general anaesthetic for the procedure. I can still choose to have it removed, and I'm considering it because it is occasionally itchy, and as it's a mole, I shouldn't scratch it.

Since leaving the medical centre, I've taken more notice of all the other moles all over my body, of which I have an abundance, and I think if I have them all removed, there'll be nothing left. I'll look like Swiss cheese.

Updated links

If any of you bother to pay attention to the "links" menu on the right-hand side of my blog, you may notice that there are two changes: Firstly, I have updated the link for Blog Agaty because Aggie recently started a new blog and this change reflects this; Secondly, I have included a link to Mick's Blog, which I, until very recently, did not know existed. I hope I have made your lives that little bit more bearable.

Router Issues

I have a Netgear wireless router. I can't be bothered checking the model number at the moment. Anyway, it has been causing some annoyance lately with a nasty habit that it seems to have picked up; it randomly stops talking to the modem, and therefore cuts off the connection to the interweb. The only solution seems to be resetting it, a process which takes at least 20 seconds. The router then functions normally for anything from 5 seconds up to indefinitely. As you can imagine, it's rather annoying to have to go through the 20 second process of resetting the router, only to have a mere 5 seconds of operation. The "wireless" symbol goes off on the display panel when the problem occurs, but it affects cable connections as well. Has anyone encountered this problem before, and if so, do you know of an effective solution?

Follow the link

I found this link on Kat's blog. It shows beautiful images of the world, and is definitely worth checking out.