May 2003 Archives

Photo Friday - Transportation [photofriday.com]

Transportation. I'm interpreting this with the basic, yet important distillation that drives most vehicles - petroleum products. This was taken at a BP gas station in the middle of the night in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. This relatively new petrol station looks contemporary compared to most, with the streamlined pumps and updated company logo. If you squint, you can see the Mazda dealership across the road.

The shooting data:

Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/60 sec - f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Tone Compensation: Auto
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Saturation Compensation: 0
Sharpening: OFF
Noise Reduction: OFF

The flash was suppressed to let ambient light in. The post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:

Brightness: Gamma increased for better visibility.
Contrast: Contrast increased to draw out more detail from the background.
Image Size: Size reduced from 2048x1536 to 500x375.

Original review for The Weblog Review here: Ei Baa Hashne' - I'll tell you about it [theweblogreview.com].

I have made the terrible mistake of misidentifying the author's gender. This has been corrected today and it's waiting for approval before the changes will be reflected in the review page.

Ei Baa Hashne' - I'll tell you about it

Do you know what Ei Baa Hashne means? I'll tell you about it. No, that's what it means, "I'll tell you about it". I am very intrigued by this weblog, it's subtitled "A web log by a Navajo in New Orleans". I must admit, I don't know much about Navajo culture, and this made me very interested to read the weblog. The first thing I noticed was the Navajo Word of the Week column in the right hand sidebar. That is a really nice touch that adds a lot to the blog. It's a great way to introduce the written Navajo language to the readers.

I'm now aware that 'chidi' means a car (or automobile) and browsing through the Navajo Word of the Week archives is interesting, I think I can formulate a sentence based on what I've read: "Ei ashkii bi 'at'eed shik'is nizhoni". My apologies if my attempt came out wrong. I was trying to say "That boy has a beautiful girlfriend" but I'm not sure it ''at'eed' and 'shik'is' can be joined to mean 'girlfriend'. It's fun to learn the sentence structure and grammar and at least I can say "Ya'at'eeh. Huai Bin yinishye. Ashkii nishli. 22 shinaahai. Melbourne di shighan" with confidence. It's in the Navajo Word archives. :) Go look up what it means, Vernon (the site owner) has done a really good job with the description and sample sentences!

Vernon has been running the blog since the 19th of February 2003, so this makes it a relatively new one. The entries are fairly regular, Vernon does not skip more than a couple of days in between posts. The monthly archives are nicely peppered with photos too, and Vernon participates in quite a few "blog memes" like the Friday Five and Photo Friday (to name two). The blog starts out nicely, with most of the entries in the first month and the first few entries in March updating the reader about the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans. Vernon was part of the parade as well, in one of his entries in March titled "MG update: My Orpheus Experience", he describes his experience with setting up and riding on a float.

It's also very nice to see that Vernon is a proud of his heritage and he makes his feelings about that known in the March 4th entry about non-Native Americans dressing up as such during Mardi Gras. The later entries are a mix of commentaries about TV series and the "blog memes", which makes the reader know more about Vernon. The two poems entitled "My Words" and "My Deeds" are really good too, and I particularly liked the second one. His feelings in that one really came through strongly.

I have always liked reading "nostalgic entries" and I enjoyed reading Vernon's post on the 6th of April regarding cliques while he was in high school at the reservation. I have never noticed clique-type behavior at my high school, but it seems to be common in the United States. It's also interesting to read that he's on the Atkins Diet, which I've heard a lot of bad things about. It's worthy to note that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt is on that very same diet by Dr. Atkins...I picked that up while reading the papers last week regarding Hollywood personalities and their diets.

I also noticed that I've been to his blog before, but didn't read anything then. I have recently started doing the Photo Friday too, and I remember clicking through all of the past entries, so I must have stumbled upon his weblog then, but didn't pay attention to anything other than the photo. I am disturbed by his entry about accidental kerosene consumption when he was five. The taste of kerosene is all too clear to me (don't ask why) and reading that made nearly made me retch in recollection of the taste.

The design of the site is based on a three column template, with the blog entries occupying the middle column. The right sidebar contains the wonderful Najavo Word of the Week (which I will definitely bookmark this site for) and links to other blogs. The left sidebar has the site navigation column, an avatar with the current weather in New Orleans, links to fellow Native American bloggers, webring memberships and other miscellaneous links. The design of the site isn't anything special and doesn't stand out, but the interesting entries makes up for that. This is definitely a blog that favors content over eye candy.

The About Me page pops up a window (with a different background) with Vernon's personal details, including his tribe and his ancestor's clans. It's interesting to learn another fact about Navajo culture - it seems to be a matrilineal society. Vernon is a physician (which he mentioned in the unforgettable kerosene entry) and we share the same favorite drink! No, not kerosene. Diet Coke. The other links are Vernon's poetry, photos (of the photo memes like Photo Friday), an archive of all the memes he has done, a page dedicated to his pets, the blog archives and The May Day Project!

I haven't seen a May Day project I didn't like, and this didn't break that streak. I enjoyed visually seeing what a day in the life of the author is. Ahehee Vernon, I really enjoyed reading through your entries! I'll have to follow the guidelines and give it a 4 for the inconsistent design though. hagoonee' everyone, and don't forget to click on the link to check out Vernon's blog, it certainly is a refreshing change and a fun read for me. It's a very good site, that's for sure.

[Edit: Mistake regarding author's gender has been corrected. My apologies.]

This site was reviewed on 2003-05-28 by sixthseal.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
sixthseal felt that Ei Baa Hashne' - I'll tell you about it deserved a rating of 4.0

Link to site: Ei Baa Hashne' - I'll tell you about it [blogspot.com].

The site owner's reply:

Ei Baa Hashne' Reviewed
Wednesday, May 28

My site was reviewed at weblogreview.com. The reviewer had quite a few flattering words for my site and I think he summed up some of the intentions I had for this site very nicely. However, there was one problem with the review. No, it had nothing to do the reviewer's opinions. I have nothing against the opinions expressed at weblogreview. It was something more substantial. Throughout the column, the author of my site is referred to as 'her' and 'she.' When I saw that, I had to double check to make sure that it was actually my site that was being reviewed. Then I opened a new screen to check the signature at the bottom of each entry to confirm that I had not inadvertently signed it as "Veronica," "Victoria," or "Verna." After establishing that I indeed had signed all my entries as "Vernon," my next thought was of befuddlement, then an attempt at some sort of understanding. Failing that after a few minutes, I next felt curious, then strangely contemplative for a while. My next thought was uneasiness, which melted into leeriness, and finally I was outright paranoid.

Nah, just kidding. My only response, if someone were to ask would be, "Hmm, interesting." I always wondered if I had another personality hidden deep inside somewhere. She must come out when I sit down at my computer to blog. Well, to the Vernon that I don't know about, I say thank you for all those wonderful entries. You bring back some of my most poignant and some of my proudest memories. Here's to sisterhood! Once again, thank you, Verna, or Victoria, or is it Veronica, ... or Vicky, maybe Viola, possibly Virginia, Vina, no wait, it's got to be Valerie, Vachon, Vanessa, ...

Original post here [blogspot.com].

Changes: The links of the original Ei Baa Hashne' - I'll tell you about it post has been changed to open up in a new window.

I've been up for three days and my body is saying no. Today would be the day I came the closest to having a heart attack. I wish I'm exaggerating, the damned chest pains and headache would go away then. No food + no sleep + stimulants (caffeine, I always feel the need to reiterate myself) = heart working overtime. No water (stupid me) = not pissing for the whole night. Drank a bit before I went to class, was feeling terrible before then...hypertension, the kind that makes your head pound and makes those veins on the side visible, with tactile rhythmic pumping too. I don't know what I'm saying. I had to walk as slow as a slug to not overexcite my overworked heart and yet I still feel constant chest pain, breathlessness and that damned pounding and random tingliness and pain in the extremities. Okay, enough of the feeling sorry for myself bit, I'm going to sleep...sedate me, trusty thingies.

Of course by thingies I mean food...it makes you sleepy when you haven't had any in a while. Anyway, here's a photo I took while on the way back today...was feeling like absolute fucking shit, but that dog is so adorable I had to take a photo. His head is too big for his body and so is his tongue! :)

Thanks for commenting everyone, I'll reply when I wake up. I am going to sleep now, before that vein makes good on its promise to give me a stroke.

Infected Mushroom - Classical Mushroom [sixthseal.com]
(right click, save target as)
[9:18 minutes 192 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 12.7 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 deleted]

I don't know where that animated GIF came from. I got it in the signature of an email from a friend and he doesn't know where he got it too. Oh well, these things tend to fall into public domain anyway. ;) The track is off IsrAliens 2 - Bizarro. Please be kind to my limited bandwidth. :) It's an Infected Mushroom one, but it sounds more 'mainstream' than the stuff they usually come out with. That makes it easier to get into, give it a listen, you might like it enough to get their other albums. Infected Mushroom makes great psy-trance, my favourite track is still Tommy the Bat off The Gathering. That one just blew my mind away the first time I heard it. Hmm...in fact all the tracks in that album is great. Messy! :) MP3.com used to have a lot of their tracks, but it's all been replaced with Deeply Disturbed off their new album.

Okay, I have an assignment due tomorrow, and I can't write much so here's my day in GREYSCALE photos:

I saw this new display at the Caulfield campus B block first level public art box. Captain America! This photo doesn't look good in greyscale...

I noticed a very long queue for the 630 Huntingdale bus at the Clayton campus bus loop when I came back. It usually is quite long at around these hours, but I've never seen it grow to these proportions before. Lack of detail at the back, I'm still learning how to take good night photos. I took three - one with suppressed flash, one with full flash, and one with "quick flash" (a fast and short flash before the shutter opens). I found that quick flash works well in night photos, but only in enclosed spaces, it doesn't do much at all in wide open areas like this. No flash produced the worst photo, hardly any detail in it. Full flash wasn't good (I already knew that, but just tried anyway) too, it just artificially brightens the front people and hid all detail at the back. The photo above is from the quick flash shoot, which was the best shot in among the three. I used a sensitivity of ISO 400, aperture of f/0.8 and a shutter speed of 1/125s. Noise reduction was also turned on, but it's not exactly the best settings.

This was what I saw when I got back. The Stairway 8 door's lock has been removed for some reason. No need for keys then. Back to assignments...after 9 am today I'll only have one left! =D Oh wait...it's past 4 am now, so that means...that means...*calculating in head*...I only have 4 hours to complete this one! Fudge! No, I really am eating one.

Link of the Day (internal): The Anonymous Game Developers at www.tierragames.com comments on Magnum "The Sixties Nine" [sixthseal.com].

You really have to read this comment...classic! :)

Link of the Day (external): A good parent? [sanlive.com].

Insightful. Read this.

Link of the Day (news): Police charged over heroin [theage.com.au].

No wonder the contact I used to get heroin off insisted on being called "Detective". Kidding! I joke too much. :)

I had a rather large breakfast today. :) Well, technically yesterday, but still...Anyway, I seldom have breakfast and lunch so it feels good to eat "breakfast food" for a change. Here's what I had:

The two paper bags contain egg and bacon muffins. The one in plastic wrap is a chocolate eclair and the strange aluminium wrap thingy hides three hash browns and two eggs. The dining room cashier thought it would be hard to carry that many stuff so she helpfully wrapped it in foil. How nice. Oh, and I did get "Wow, you must be hungry" again. Heh.

That's the egg and bacon muffin. Mmm...salty.

Hash browns and nicely done eggs. :)

Eclair...the cream filling is so nice, it bursts out whenever you take a bite.

Thank God for artificially increased metabolism rates. ;)

[Update: (3:31 AM) Just received another note. Scanned and added below.]

I was so fucking pissed off just now...was all ready to (action which would result in an assault conviction) the person responsible. I have a quick temper and the stimulants (caffeine, caffeine, told ya in the McDonalds post back there) coursing through my bloodstream exacerbated things and I was dead set on waiting in the laundry room to physically confront the asshole that removed my still damp laundry from the dryers. The problem today was caused by the fact that 2 of the 6 dryers in the laundry is out of order, another one keeps on stopping so you have to constantly restart it, another one only blows cold air, so that leaves 2 dryers for the whole of Roberts Hall. One of those only produced slightly warm air while the other (which my laundry was in) had true hot air. I had returned to find my laundry:
1. Stuffed in a corner cubbyhole with a fucking wet underwear that isn't mine
2. Stuffed in a center cubbyhole with a sock that isn't mind
3. Scattered on the floor
Tell me you wouldn't give in to violent urges if this happens to you. There're some fucking inconsiderate ressies who wouldn't think twice about conveniently removing your laundry on the grounds that it is already "dry". Yeah, it's easy to see that the outer clothes (the outer part of the bunch dries faster than the inside of the bunch) is somewhat dry and pretend that the ones in the middle of the bunched up laundry isn't still damp. I was very pissed off about the way my laundry was scattered and stuffed indiscriminately too. Fuckers!!!

I waited a while, but didn't have the patience to stay the whole night, so I took the person's laundry out and put mine back in (the dryer is rightfully mine until my clothes are dry). This was when I noticed that the person responsible is female (from the contents of the dryer). That's no excuse though, but I stopped my violent ideations (is this sexist behavior?) and stormed back to my room to write a message to stick on the dryer instead. I didn't take a photo or scan my message (yup, I still remember about images even in this state of mind :p) but I did take a photo of the dryer (that's the picture above) after I stuck my message in there. I managed to exercise restrain and worded it politely, but I also wanted to send a message that it is UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR to do that. The message is blurry because it's cropped from the larger original photo size (the one above) and that had suppressed flash on. It goes:

If the text is not legible to you (I did try liberal sharpen filters, but it's still blurry) here's a transcript:

My laundry
is obviously
NOT!!
DRY. Please
refrain from removing
(crossed out text) clothes which have
not dried. I do not
appreciate the way you
stuffed and scattered my
laundry into the cubby holes!
I have put mine back in. Call
me at (my cell phone number) if
you feel this is in error!

Needless to say, being annoyed does not make one eager to observe the grammatical and sentence structure rules, but it gets the point across. I stuck that onto the dryer and waited for the phone call. I didn't get one though, so I just returned to the laundry room 30 minutes later (coz my laundry should be dry by then) and saw that my laundry was still in the dryers and my note has been untouched. Or so I thought...upon closer review, the note isn't the one I wrote. She has posted a reply and stuck it there instead. I looked for my note (wanted to scan it) but it wasn't anywhere in the laundry room nor the garbage bin (I checked) so I figured she took it with her. That's why you have to settle for the blurry pic and the transcript above. Anyway, this was her reply:

Now that made me feel really bad. I wasn't angry anymore (stopped after 15 minutes). I have a quick temper, but I can't stay angry for long. That's one of my good personality quirks. ;) I also felt guilty about everything coz it wasn't her fault after all and she was victim to this mysterious laundry room asshole as well. Anyway, I put her laundry back into the dryer so she wouldn't have to queue if someone came in before her. She was next anyway, and it was the least I could do. She left her number (mosaic applied for her privacy) so I called to apologize. She wasn't in and I got her voicemail so I left a message to apologize for the mix up and told her that her laundry is in the dryers now.

I still didn't feel very proud of myself though, so I called again 10 minutes later and got her on the phone. I apologized for the mix up and she apologized too (though she didn't do anything wrong). She also told me that she lives just one floor above me! I was mortified...I knew who she is now. It's the friendly girl from upstairs whom I don't know personally, but we have a "hello-and-smile" relationship. How embarrassing...but it's cool though, ended the conversation with "everything's okay" from both parties. So all's good and well. Except for the mystery laundry messer...you just wait till I sn...er, drink some coffee and I'll be coming down on you like a ton of bricks. If I'm still angry that is...right now I'm more tired than anything. I've been up since 10 pm yesterday and that's just over 27 hours, which should be nothing...except I've been exhausted since early afternoon. Anyway, that's the Roberts Hall laundry fiasco. :)

[Added @ 3:31 AM]

I just received another note. It was stuck outside my door and I only noticed it when I went to the toilet just now. That's very nice of her, really appreciate the kind gesture! :)

Front:

Back:

Mosiac applied to name and room number to protect her privacy.

I'm very disappointed at the predictable and immature way I reacted at first though...I thought I had the "temper, temper" bit under control, but apparently not. However, it's been 6 months since my last one, and that's pretty good progress. :) I don't want to send myself to an early grave with the strokes and the heart attacks. I just lose it over silly things, that last time was so ridiculous I feel stupid. Please don't laugh, but I actually got into a pissing match in IRC! Yes, the realm of retards and trolls. *hangs head in shame* It was a local channel and this teenager was just provoking me, getting my panties all in a twist by talking shit about my father. I retaliated by telling him to walk the walk, and told him to meet me at this car park near my house in 10 minutes. He further irritated me by going "hahaha" and not replying to my challenge (yes, yes, I know I'm childish when I'm pissed) so I questioned his manhood in the main channel, using classics like "Do you even have balls down there?" and "Pussy, what a fucking coward" and it took 35 iteration before he finally got pissed enough to accept, so off I went (in my pjyamas, no less), grabbed the nearest thing (2 by 4), and drove out in the rain at 3 am in the morning.

I circled around the area for a full 25 minutes and got soaking wet but didn't see anyone. I called my friend who was online and in the same channel, and she said that guy was in the channel! This made me twice as pissed and I drove back and made about 300+ taunts using creative variations of all insults possible, I even had to resort to "Your mother's a slut" before he really got pissed and said he's coming out now. So off I went again, I was helluva cold in my wet PJs and I had to wait another 30 minutes and no one turned up! He must be laughing his head off in his comfy room. What right thinking person would waste so much time for nothing? Just stupid me. Anyway, I wasn't pissed anymore after that, the cold just made me want to go home and take a hot shower. While showering, it just occurred to me that it's not possible for a 16 year old to have a driver's license! Now you know the extent of my silliness. I'm not a hardass or anything, my panties just have a high affinity with knots, so that's why such things happen to me. Oh well, back to assignments. I could have finished one if I hadn't started with the written version of verbal diarrhea.

The Cigarette Bible

Genesis

To be a cigarette...

is to be squashed with other strangers for weeks or months in a dark room with no air to breath, no space to move, and constant full physical body contact with other cigarettes. Unfortunately, this is the best part of your life. One day, your world-box will be suddenly inverted and pounded against an invisible but strong object as your God packs the box. That is your first indication that the world is not limited to the box-world. There will be much rumbling and dissonance as the box-world starts to undergo permanent changes - the sky will open wide and you will meet your God.

Hebrews

God stares down at you with a ecstatic expression on His face and you rejoice! God reaches down and takes one of your fellow inhabitants and gives him a kiss. "Praise the Lord!" you exult as you watch one of your neighbors go to Heaven and receive blessing from the Lord with...fire? The awful realization dawns upon you...your God is not a kind and loving God. The joyful expression on His face is not the benign love you think. The path leads not to Paradise, but to the burning fires of Hell. The fire of Hades will consume you slowly...leaving you with nothing but a disembodied head. However, you are right in that He is your God. He does not go by the names "Messiah", "Prince of Peace" or "Savior" because that is not his nature.

Lamentations

There is no deliverance. God decides when and where you die. It is not possible to move around the "world-box", and you start to realize the worst thing of all - you know when you'll be next. You watch as your neighbor gets forcibly removed by The One Most High. You are next. The dreadful waiting, the terrible uncertainty about the actual time of death...you only know you're NEXT. Maybe you will get temporary salvation. Your other neighbor is chosen by The Almighty. But that means you're definitely next. Your time will be filled with fear and insanity as you realize The Meaning of Life. Your average life span after you meet God is 3 minutes. The 3 minutes are filled with agony and pain and leaves you with only your consciousness, and a head without a body.

Machabees

There is a purgatory called Ashtray and there you will receive your second punishment with your fellow sinners. "Purgatory is good" is the general consensus in there. "We have burned for our sins and now we must repent! That is the only way to heaven!" is what everyone in there believes. Soon, you will start to believe it too and you worship and make penance. You will realize that there are several levels of purgatory and their names are Wastepaper Basket, Rubbish Bin, and Garbage Truck. The Day of Atonement will come after that and everyone will get raptured towards a bright light.

Revelation

"Glory to The One Most High! Hallelujah!" and everyone sheds tears of joy for you have paid for your sins and now you're rewarded with eternity in Eden, where the fruits grow as far as the eyes can see and there is no suffering. Unfortunately, the destination is not Eden. The trash combustion chamber is not Heaven, though it's easy to make that mistake as both has "bright light" as one of their attributes. It is not Hell either, for that suggests your spirit lives on. The final destination is Omega - The End. There is no afterlife for you.

The End

My attempt at creative writing. No blasphemy intended. There are lots of verb tense inconsistencies in there, so I broke the story into "books" make it more uniform. :)
The idea came from reading the post Being an actor would be good [livejournal.com].
Link: aciddreammer [livejournal.com].
Photo courtesy of veritas.

I have sunk to a new personal low. Please do not read any further unless you're prepared to be disgusted. The left side of my work table is the absolute dirtiest surface area in my room. This is because - I eat takeaway food there. I smoke there (ashtray is located there). I store packs of (opened) chocolate/candy there (for my weed related munchies). I put coins there. Receipts/bills/returned assignments/letters etc goes there. You get the drill, it's the "everything there" part of the room. I took a single foil of meth out from my stash. The foil is pre-weighted to 100 mg and packaged individually. I unwrap the foil and put it on the left side on my desk. I reached for my straw. Except there was no straw. Where did my straw go? I searched my stash drawer, went through everything, but nope, it wasn't there. I searched the left side on my desk, flipping up letters, bills, chocolate bars and the opened meth foil. Yes, the unwrapped foil of meth! Oh, it flew everywhere. The "landing zone" was an area of approximately 3/4 meter by 1/4 meter. It wasn't pretty, I'll tell you that. I'll like to say that my reaction was limited to saying "Oh, what bad luck", dust everything into the rubbish bin and get another foil from the drawer.

Only users lose drugs

It wasn't. Instead, I dusted everything into a "working pile". The name alone suggests what I intend to do with it. Keep in mind that the meth was salvaged from things as varied as the surface of a 50 cent coin, the wrapper of a large Cadbury chocolate bar (the 250 g size ones), a receipt from Coles, an odd piece of cardboard that I've never seen, Metcards (public transport tickets) and a A$10 note to name a few things. The remainder (which wasn't on top of something) was merged into the working pile by moving everything out of the way and scraping the table with a card. I nearly retched while writing that sentence, for reasons I'll go into in a second. Anyway, the moving everything out of the way bit is why the picture above shows a rather empty table. It's usually ultra-cluttered.

Now I have a pile of questionable things which I call the "working pile". The pile was not consistent with the volume a point (100 mg) of the meth I get would look like. I'll say it was about 1/3 of 100 mg, which meant I lost quite a bit. I can see some bits on the table still, but those are in areas which are very dusty and dirty (which was what I meant about retching). I did scrape over those parts anyway. :( In my defense, I worked around the most disgusting areas while scraping and wiped the really dirty ones which had a bit of meth of it with a wet cloth before I get any funny ideas. After that, I got down and went to work on the "working pile". I used the side of the card to separate the "working pile" into two piles - "maybe meth" and "probably meth" (cheers BigTrancer!). The "probably meth" consists of relatively large shards of crystal and smaller bits which has a translucent quality and looks like meth. I had a second bit of bad luck when I dropped one of the largest shard on the carpet, but even I'm not ghetto enough to go looking for it. :p

The "maybe meth" is what the rest of the "working pile" contains after the "probably meth" filtration (this is too good a word for it) was done. I insufflated the "probably meth" pile and went to work on the "maybe meth". It burnt much more than usual. These are among the things I found in the "maybe meth" pile:
Cigarette ash
Chocolate bits
Biscuit crumbs
Lint
A short hair (I'm getting rather put off at this point)
Piece of shredded cannabis bud
Unidentified brown gunk
Coagulated white stuff which I don't want to speculate about
As you can see the left side of the table is not clean! I shudder when I think about the takeaway meals eaten here and the resulting stains (ugh). Anyway, after the above adulterants were removed, the remaining "maybe meth" still doesn't look quite right.

Well, I sat there pondering about the health consequences of introducing the nasty things (and probably plenty of bacteria) that reside on the left side of my table to my nasal membranes and I decided that it won't be a good idea at all. I ate the "maybe meth" pile. I figured my stomach would be able to handle it better than my sinuses. I feel so dirty and depraved. You can shake your heads in pity and go "tsk tsk" now.

I've been told that last bit plenty of times anyway. In fact, SY just used it yesterday, also regarding me and meth but in a different context. :) The good thing about today is:

I know. You don't have to remind me every time I reach for one

I don't have to use nicotine gum anymore. =D I ran out of cigarettes yesterday and had to resort to the gum, which staves off the nicotine monster running though my blood, but not the one in my lungs. No smoke = no satisfaction. Oh, and some important things I want to share:

Please be careful and respect every substance.
I don't have time to go through specifics, but I thought I was gonna kick the bucket yesterday. I took way too much dexamphetamine and methamphetamine last night and it fucked me left, right and center. I was gang raped by the two and it wasn't pleasant at all! I felt like I was going to have a stroke, heart attack or a brain aneurysm and possibly all three.

Please take care when you use urinary alkalinizers to potentiate (meth)amphetamines!
The way they work is by reducing the rates of elimination of amphetamine type substances from your body. This makes re-dosing dangerous, especially if you take high doses for prolonged periods of time. I took most of my script (a stupid thing by itself) and some meth, didn't drink much water (in a stupid effort to further prolong the action) and held my urine for very long periods of time (I only went twice over 36 hours - another stupid effort to make it last longer). I believe that all the above and the frequent re-dosing led to a dangerous buildup of amphetamines in my bloodstream. Urinary alkalinizers will lead to a buildup in your bloodstream because it reduces the rates of elimination. Time your re-dosing well, and consider reducing your subsequent doses to compensate for the buildup. I didn't even notice it until I jumped 3 feet out of my chair when A PIECE OF PAPER dropped from the desk and made a tiny swoosh sound.

I was feeling extreme pressure in my head and I had this bright spot of light in my vision which I think is related to pressure behind the eyeballs. Other manifestations were constant dizziness, head rushes after slight exertion (like moving your arm) and while urinating (not the good head rushes, these are the ones that feels like your skull is about to explode), very prominent chest pain, extreme difficulty in breathing (had to really strain to get a breath of air and even then it didn't felt enough), a high heart beat that I could hear (feel?), swollen and freezing hands and feet that looked grey with very prominent and bulging veins (even the small ones, they aren't noticeable usually), and the worst of all - random jabbing pains. The pains are sharp but short and usually around the hands and feet. I've had these symptoms a lot of times before, it's all part of the fine line us tweakers straddle when we push the limits. However, every person's body is different and I urge you not to sniff and say that's just amphetamine overdose symptoms, especially if you have existing hypertension or heart conditions.

This is because of something I've noticed which I've confirmed by reading medical articles (forgot the links, but please search if you want references). The thing I've noticed is - I cannot do long runs anymore, it's fucking impossible! The substance is not the limiting factor, but the negative reactions are. I always don't eat and drink little while tweaking and that used to be fine. It still is fine. I'll be honest here - I use much more frequently than I admit to. It's not a "weekends only" thing by far. It would be better described by the word "cycle". I also tend to go for high doses, re-dose often, use alkalinizers and other physical tricks like little water intake, forced urine retention etc. All the symptoms I describe above starts happening at shorter and shorter periods. It first started to appear at the end of a 6 day meth run.

Now, the symptoms are starting to appear sooner and sooner - 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, you know the drill. My runs are the no sleep, no food and no other substances except stimulants type, so that could be part of the reason. I don't exceed 3 day runs now, because I can't! That's the only cycle I can sustain now - 3 days on/1-2 day(s) off/3 days on. It's not for the lack of trying, the symptoms get progressively worse and worse until breathing take up most of my energy and the chest pain becomes to prominent, it makes work impossible, so what's the point of tweaking then? I'm concerned that this means that there's some sort of permanent damage being done...I have existing hypertension (high blood pressure) and that and the urine alkalinizers might be the reason why it hits me so hard. I've been reading about amphetamine induced pulmonary hypertension - if you get this lovely condition, the average time till you buy the farm is quoted as 1-3 years. Speed/meth puts a lot of strain on your body. Please be careful out there, if you're taking high doses with frequent re-dosing/using urinary alkalinizers as potentiators/have existing hypertension or heart conditions. Do the drugs, don't let the drugs do you, eh? :)

Now if only I would take my own advice...

P/S - I found that taking a high dose of benzodiazepines (I took clonazepam) seem to lower your blood pressure and eliminate most of the symptoms. Don't take this as medical advice though, it's just personal observation. Also, by "high dose", I mean a definite hypnotic dose - one that will surely put you to sleep. I would also eat before I sleep, cannabis works wonders.

I just realized that (meth)amphetamine is one of the things which tends to lead to the utilization of multiple substances to effectively manage the side effects - or as the anti-drug people like to call it, "poly drug abuse". That might be a cause of concern for some people, so take care everyone!

Related link: Guide to coming down off meth and speed [sixthseal.com].

I am so sleepy right now. I had a nice, long sleep from 12 pm to nearly 10 pm but only the first 6 hours was any good...large cymbals clashing over my face would not rouse me. It might give me a nosebleed, but I'll still be asleep. ;) Unfortunately, the increased binding of GABA to my GABA_A receptors and the resulting opening of the chloride channel to promote the entry of Cl- which leads to hyperpolarization and inhibited cellular excitation started to decrease when I was 6 hours into my nice slumber. I'm being intentionally obscure here, if you haven't noticed. :)

Anyway, I started to wake frequently after 6 hours - my neighbor closing her door, our floor's phone ringing, the resulting knocking on doors and shouts of "phone call", even the fucking toilet flushing made me wake up. It's all good though, I feel pretty rested but still slightly sedated, but we'll fix that later with some...caffeine of course, what did you think I was going to say? Well, I'll be off to McDonald's with my mates soon, and then it's no sleep till Monday as I finish up my written assignments this big fuck off coding assignment which I haven't even started. I had better get my laundry done too, before I have to resort to re-wearing dirty underwear. The photo above was taken outside the McDonalds we usually go to - it's a mural of some sort, with a caricature of someone with the Maccas Krew...thought it was Simon Creen at first, but his facial features do not look the one in the deco after a second look.

P/S - Thanks for commenting everyone, I'll reply when I get back.

Photo Friday - Overlooked [photofriday.com]

I've just started doing the Photo Friday weekly photography challenge today. I'm interpreting this week's photo challenge with this photo - it shows a woman struggling with her push trolley and bags after crossing the street, but that detail is easy to overlook. The building's strong visual presence in the background makes it the dominating feature of the photo and the woman only makes herself noticeable after the other elements have been visually processed. I find that the building is the first thing I notice, followed by the bus, and finally the woman, and only because it's centered in the bottom of the photo.

This photo was taken in the city of Melbourne, Australia. The shot was made in Auto mode (without any custom settings except a suppressed flash) from the open window of a moving car. My digicam uses Matrix Metering in Auto mode. The shooting data:

Focal Length: 8mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern 1/78 sec - f/2.8
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Sensitivity: Auto
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-C
Tone Compensation: Auto
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Digital Zoom Ratio: 1.00
Saturation Compensation: 0
Sharpening: Auto
Noise Reduction: OFF

The flash did not go off (suppressed), and I didn't realize I had used a digital zoom of 1x while taking the photo. The digital zoom only gets triggered when the optical zoom is at the maximum (3x zoom), and the digital zoom probably contributed to the slight lack of detail. The digital zoom also means that the photo was taken with a total of 4x zoom. Chromatic aberration is noticeable on the left wing of the building, and this was not corrected in post-production. The post-production work was done in Photoshop 7.0 and involves:

Crop: A very slight crop to center the woman and reduce the vertical scale of the building was applied to the original photo, with aspect ratios intact.
Brightness: Gamma increased for better visibility.
Contrast: Contrast increased to draw out more detail from the woman.

Why is this man laughing? [sixthseal.com].

I went to pick up my dexamphetamine script today. Granted, the day that happens usually warrants a post filled with much joy and laughter...but not to this extent. Hahaha! :) Look, I'm at it again! Okay, let me fill you all in about what happened today. I went to my usual doctor to pick up my script 100 tablets of dextroamphetamine sulfate today. The good doctor raised the price issue again with me, so I thought it would be a good time to push my luck. Hehe!

Anyway, the price issue stems from the fact that the good doctor feels sorry for me because I have to pay the clinic consultation fees (A$35) every time I pick up my script. He knows I'm an international student from the first consultation, and it might have been something I said that first time (don't really remember), but he's really concerned about my financial situation. :) Now, is that a good doctor or what!

However, the thing is, my Medibank Private OSHC (Overseas Student Health Coverage) makes me eligible to claim back the consultation fees. I've told the doctor that when he raised the issue the first time but he seems to forget it every time I go in. Man, I'm feeling really bad about scamming this doctor, he's a really good, concerned medical professional on all fronts. Bless him!

A rather long aside:

I read a post about 25 mg getting someone "too wired" and another about a guy taking "35 mg but don't take that much because I'm a big guy". Fuckers!!!!! I can't get off on less than 60 mg and I need urinary alkalinizers and a really empty stomach for that to work, and re-dosing has to happen frequently. I just took 60 mg, a 40 mg booster dose at T+30 and snorted a fat line of meth to go with everything when I felt the oral dose kick in. I'm fairly nice and stimulated (whee! =D) but it's not a "recreational dose" in that I'll need much more to get ready to "fucking party". ;) This is just a "work dose" for assignments. Reading those posts got my panties all in a twist (not literally, I prefer lacy G-strings...I kid! :)) because my tolerance does not allow me to "get off" on that kind of doses. :( I'm not saying "my dick is bigger than yours" - fuck, not at all! I wish so much that I have the tolerance level of a normal person so my stash will last longer! Reading those posts makes me envious...imagine how long my gear will last if I only need 20 mg to get tweaked. The possibilities! Oh, the sweet sweet possibilities!

P/S - Don't take the amounts I take - dosage guides are available at Erowid (link on the right). I'm in a bit of a meth here...tweaking very often and not exercising moderation and self-control. Don't worry or feel sorry about me though, I'm going to quit (don't laugh, seriously) in June, for reasons I will explain later. :)

Anyway, back to the post, I told the doctor not to worry about it, coz I can claim back the consultation fees, but he keeps on forgetting that. Another small aside: I'm sure my health coverage allows me to claim back part of the medication cost, but there's no way I'm doing that! :) Maybe I'm paranoid, but I want a "clean record" - no benzodiazepines or amphetamine type stimulants on my medical record please. I've read that Medibank does check for doctor shoppers, and benzodiazepines for anxiety and dextroamphetamine for narcolepsy will be a bit of a discrepancy now won't it? Maybe it'll just make a few people at Medibank scratch their heads in puzzlement at this contraindicatory prescription list, maybe they won't even notice it, but maybe, just maybe, they'll flag me as a doctor shopper and that'll be the end of things.

Picked up 200 tablets (a whopping 1000 mg - that's a gram of dextroamphetamine sulfate) today

"False representation to obtain a prescription drug" aka faking symptoms to get a prescription IS a drug offence and can lead to 1 year in prison in Victoria! Don't fuck around, I'm not glamorizing or promoting this practice in any way, I'm just telling you about my day and that's what a blog is about right? You might also be concerned about the other issues raised by Dave in his comments in Project Doctor Shopping I [sixthseal.com]. He's got a couple of good points in there, however, I don't mean to "proudly drawing attention to my exploits". I don't mention about my doctor shopping shenanigans anywhere else, but I neglected to notice that "Dexamphetamine" seems to be an Australian "brand name" and thus my site is in the top 10 returned hits of Google (sometimes, seem to change every time Google crawls) if people search for that particular word. This worries me a bit though, I would like the site's readers to read about my day, but I'm also aware that a doctor/medical insurance representative/pharmacist/law enforcement officer (*crosses fingers*) might stumble upon it and do something about it. Well, in the unlikely (but statistically possible) event that you're one of the above...not that this is a valid excuse, but consider giving a final semester (more about this later) university student who will be leaving Australia for good in June 2003 a break eh? :)

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

My, am I paranoid today. And I've digressed so far from the point. Sheesh! :) My apologies, 100 mg + line of meth does get me fairly tweaked - it's not as high as I'll like to be for recreation, but it sure gets me talking and writing excessively, which is why I use it for assignments. Sure gets things done really fast, if you control the urge to elaborate and go off on tangents. Hehe! :) I wouldn't use it for writing stuff though, it makes me write inappropriately intimate "Hello, we're having a conversation" type essays instead of the detached "The simulation was run for 420 seconds, and upon completion, the average utilization rates for the TD link is found to hover around 60%. The TD link's parameters were then changed to meet the IEEE 802.3 1000BaseT standard and this resulted in a significant decrease in the utilization rate figures as predicted, with an average of 7.7% over the course of the 7 minute simulation.".

I am digressing again. Sorry, I'll get back to the post now. Lemme just scroll up and see where I ended...ah, yes. I've never claimed back the medication costs due to that reason, and also I don't feel good about being "subsidized" for something I'm using for recreational purposes. I do claim the consultation costs though - and this may sound like hypocrisy - but I make a distinction between this and medication costs. Before you accuse me of "taking advantage of Australia's good medical facilities" and tell me to go back home (which I'm going to do in June anyway) please take note of the fact that I've only claimed back the consultation costs for the doctor who prescribes me dexamphetamine, and that's just 4 times.

Dexamphetamine driving in traffic.
Speech bubble: Vroom!

I also pay high monthly medical premiums for my Medibank Private health insurance - I'm not on Medicare because I'm not a PR or citizen! Perhaps that's why I don't feel bad about claiming back the consultation costs for the dexamphetamine consultations (never claimed the other ones, used a fake name so that's not possible), it's something about claiming back small amounts from a for-profit private insurance company that doesn't bother me at all. Hell, the amounts I pay for premiums and the out of pocket costs from several unfortunate incidents is many, many times higher than the meager claimbacks I did. I'm contributing to the Australian economy from that, my university fees (overseas students = very inflated figures) and the other associated living costs. I'm about to digress into a 10, 000 word essay about why international students are contributing to the economy, not "taking away" from it, but I'll spare you all that. :)

I've said I'll stop digressing, right? Oops...okay, anyway, I've only done 4 claims for the consultation (but not medication) from the dexamphetamine clinic, because my altruism can only go as far as my financial means, which isn't much at all. Oh, and the claims are not paid back in full though, there is out of pockets costs for people on OSHC - I don't know how much it is in terms of percentages, I could break out with the calculators (or at least click on Window's calculator) but I'll let someone with the adequate math skillz to work this out in the head do this. :) Consultation costs me A$35 and I've been to 4 consultations for dexamphetamine, so that's A$140 (I had to use a calculator for that - damn my poor math). I got A$100.50 from the claims, so that's A$39.50 out of pocket expenses. Phew, I didn't use a calculator for that (though I was tempted to) - worked it all out in my head...it took quite a while and I had to bend and flex my fingers to keep track and provide visual cues during the calculation, but I did it! That's something to be proud of...heh! Okay, now someone else work out the OOP expenses if there're interested, I forgot how to calculate percentages even with a calculator...

Dexamphetamine in: Delusions of Grandeur - Hovering over the skies of Melbourne.
Speech bubble: Behold mortals!

Anyway, I told the doctor that I can claim back the consultation fees, but he says he doesn't feel good about me paying every time. I think he mentioned something along the lines of he'll rather me pay the pharmacy for the medication and not the clinic for the consultation...which leads me to wonder if he's involved in any outstanding issues with the clinic, but it's not my place to speculate. Nevertheless, I wish you well, good doctor. All the best in everything and may you live long and prosper! I don't think doctors need any wishes regarding the prosper bit though. :p

Well, after all this paragraphs of digression and sidetracks, now I'm back to what I said in the first paragraph. :) He raised the issue again with me today, so I thought...I'm feeling lucky today so I'll push my luck and see how far it takes me. Roll with it, and all that:

Me: Hmm...
(The "hmm..." is because I wanted to make it look like the idea just got into my head)
Me: Well, would it be possible to...say, write a script for 200 tablets instead of 100 tablets? I won't need to come back so often in that case.
(I immediately regretted saying this, I meant to say 300, but my tongue slipped. Curse you for abandoning me in my moment of need...I'll give you a good bite in retaliation! Ouch! Okay, back to the conversation.)
Doctor: Yes, that's a good idea, that means you'll only have to go to the pharmacy instead of all the way here (my address is on my patient details sheet, good thing he never asked why I came all the way here instead of going to a doctor in my suburb) and paying consultation every time to get your script. I'll do that. How much were you taking again?
(I'm thinking really hard at this point...is the doctor testing me? Or has he really forgotten and the patient history sheet doesn't have my dosage on it? Split second decisions, buddy, do it right this time, go with the flow, do what feels right!)
Me: I'm taking two tablets twice a day.
(Yes, I told the truth. I had decided the doctor wasn't testing me based on his expression and other cues, including body language, etc and my gut feeling (which is actually pretty good). However, I didn't want to lie to this doctor when he's been so nice to me, it just won't be right. It may sound strange that a doctor shopper has "morals" but you don't understand the scene if you think that way. Recreational drug users and the doctor shopping subculture is just a microcosm of the general population - there are good people, they are bad people, like general society. (Note to self: Nice one! You managed to squeeze the word 'microcosm' into a post at last! =D) Personally, I consider myself a "good person". The written version of verbal masturbation? Oh well, I feel that way anyway because I'm honest except when doctor shopping (I prefer the term "going into character" instead of lying) and I don't: rip anyone off, dob anyone in, fuck anyone over, steal, cheat, deal, manipulate etc etc. Yes, writing that did felt good, and it's true too. :) However, others might not think I'm a "good person" because substance use is still shaking off its stigma, but that's okay. Judge not lest ye be judged yourself. ;) My God (blasphemy), that is an inappropriately long aside in the middle of reenacting a conversation - I wish I had an editor to cut out all this crap.)

Dexamphetamine using a public toilet. The yellow stream missed the bowl.
Speech bubble: Ahh...

Doctor: Okay, so I'll write 200 tablets (I kick myself again for not saying 300) and also put in some repeats so come in again when you finish the tablets.
Me: Thanks doctor, I'll come in again next Monday then.
(I kid!!! I didn't say that last sentence. Sorry. Couldn't resist. :) This is my real reply:)
Me: How do the repeats work?
(I want to sound clueless in preparation for my next phase of "Operation Upgrade Dexamphetamine Prescription" or OUDP. Heck, that didn't even have a ring to it. Okay, "Operation Supersize Prescription - Elicit Extra Dexamphetamine". Hmm, 'elicit' doesn't sound right, 'solicit' is better but that doesn't start with 'e' and 'elicit' is the only other 'e' word I could think of. Be glad it's not "...Extra Extra...". :) Anyway, I'm sure taking a long time to write this...back to "Operation SPEED".)
Doctor: The chemist will give you a piece of paper which you can use to refill the bottle when it's empty. Remember to keep that paper.
Me: I will. Thanks doctor! I appreciate your help.
Doctor: My pleasure. I don't know if the pharmacy would fill 200 tablets of dexamphetamine though, they might have a problem with it. Just tell them to call me if they say anything about that. My number is on the top of the prescription form.
Me: Okay, thanks for everything doctor!

I walked out of the clinic. What happened to Phase Two of Operation SPEED? I didn't initiate it...I was planning to talk about tolerance (which the doctor never asked about) in Phase Two. I reckon it's normal to get the dose increased after a while because you do build a massive tolerance on these things, even if you're using it for legitimate reasons. However, things didn't go well last time I brought up that issue and my sixth sense told me that asking right would be a bad idea when the doctor has trusted me with 200 tablets at once (instead of 100 tablets with dated repeats as is the norm). Even though tolerance is a valid issue, this doctor has never prescribed dexamphetamine before (he told me the first time) and I have the feeling he may not be aware of tolerance issues.

Dexamphetamine stopped and questioned by the police!
Speech bubble: I'm not on speed officer, honest!

I'm not trying to discredit the doctor, I'm sure he knows a lot, but doctors are not pharmacists and my experience tells me that a lot of doctors are not familiar with the details of every medication (it's impossible to do that!) and they often rely on something like a "Physician's Desk Reference" or something like that, when prescribing something they're not familiar with. Those books tend to have something along the lines of "HIGH ADDICTIVE POTENTIAL" [rxlist.com] under dextroamphetamine (probably in capital letters and bold font too) and no mention about tolerance, except something like "THIS DRUG SHOULD BE USED AT THE MINIMUM EFFECTIVE DOSE". Asking for an increase might make me sound like I've succumbed to the first warning, and it just didn't feel like the time was right. In other words, the planets did not align to form a straight line, a rare phenomena of epic astronomical proportions.

Oh, I must have written thousands of words already. Okay, I'll finish up...I'm familiar with the Latin notation in prescriptions (read up and memorized it), and I could (not would! could - would, can - will, possibility - acting out) modify the script, but I'm not that morally bankrupt. I'll always go the doctor shopping route instead of forging scripts or modifying existing ones. However, the thought did flit across my mind before I pushed it out (Naughty!). Prescription fraud is where I draw the line, it's just not something I'll do. The two are similar in the eyes of the law though, modifying a script (forging a prescription) attracts the same penalties as doctor shopping (false representation to obtain a prescription drug) - both give you a one year (maximum - a lot of people are waiting to take advantage of this offer!) accommodation at the local Hilton (all expenses paid, no less). I would make a joke about showers and slippery soap, but I don't feel like it anymore - thinking about the government's generous offer is depressing.

Anyway, the thought just crossed my mind because the pen I have produces the same colored ink and texture as the writing on the script. I had noticed that the doctor is using the same pen I have (well, the pen is not the same, but the ink cartridge is...just knew this because it was a bit of information I picked up and filed into my "temporary storage for things that are not worthy of going into permanent memory" while shopping for a good pen, but for some reason the temporary files didn't get deleted) instead of the free "Zoloft" or some other pharmaceutical company's free pens to promote their latest and greatest. Theoretically, I could either change the frequency or the quantity to a more accommodating figure. The doctor is using the BNF (British system) instead of the US standard, seeing as he wrote abbreviated "Bd" instead of "b.i.d." for twice a day...changing the capital B to a capital Q and adding s after the d (doubling the frequency) would make a "mess" with the B and it would be easy to pick up. "Bd" to "PRN" is possible without too much of a mess, but I doubt the pharmacist would read that without laughing or calling the police. :)

Dexamphetamine vs possum!
Speech bubble: j00 dead fool! Eat me will ya?

I don't think anyone prescribes dextroamphetamine to be "taken as needed". "Bd" to "Tds" to increase frequency by one is potentially feasible, but the way the doctor "crosses" the end of B makes it impossible to alter without looking dodgy due to the extra bottom "wing" of B. Anyway, "Bd" to another frequency is not easy from the way the doctor writes...it's not something as easy as changing "qd" to "qid" in the US notation system, that's for sure! Modifying the frequency is out...what about the quantity? I don't even dare to touch that non-standard notation! I can't even make sense of it...what with the T with an additional bar and two dots thingy. My impulsive side was going "Try ADDING two vertical bars and two dots and see what happens!". Duh. :)

The easiest mod is obviously the Arabic (or Hindu, or European depending on what you read...it's the common 1, 2, 3 numbers) numerals for amount. Changing 200 to 300 isn't all that hard, and I'm sure a lot of people have had practice doing that in primary school if you have parents with high expectations. ;) But yeah, I'm just throwing the ideas around in my mind then, I'm not seriously going to do it! Like I said, it's not something I want to be involved in. Besides, the script is suspicious enough as it is (even though it's perfectly legit), and a callback to check is practically guaranteed. It's not common at all for controlled drugs like dexamphetamine to be prescribed in large amounts - the usual practice is to have time limited refills, not double the amount in one go (like what the doctor gave me today). This shows that the doctor is placing a lot of trust in me by not following standard prescribing procedure, and I don't want to betray that trust.

Anyway, I had to wait a long time to get my script filled at the chemist...I couldn't see behind the counter, so I don't know if they actually called the doctor to check, it doesn't matter anyway, since my script is kosher. :) However, the reaction of the woman attending the counter was soooo funny. Heh. The prescription dispensing happens at the back and you go to the front to pay for it. There I was, carrying my two lovely dexamphetamine pill bottles in a small basket...I put them down on the counter, the woman picked up both the bottles and went:

"Oh, wow! This is a large amount eh?"

The funny thing about it was the way she squinted first, adjusted her spectacles and the way her eyes bulged at the second visual confirmation. Oh man, that just made my day! =D I guess you had to be there. I would have thought that there would be plenty of people who have cashed in much larger scripts before, so I really thought her reaction was strange. Strange, but funny. :) Perhaps she's new. I can't even think of an appropriate answer to that, and it sounds like a rhetorical question anyway, so I just smiled and said "yeah" in noncommittal tone.

The price for 1000 mg of dextroamphetamine sulfate is A$45.25. 200 x 5 mg dexamphetamine pills for less than A$50. :) Also, notice the 200 beside the top part. That usually states the number of pills in the bottle, all my previous ones had 100 on them. Be still my beating heart! Is it possible? Has the pharmacist made a disastrous mistake while reading the script or counting the tablets and gave me 200 pills in each bottle, totaling 400 tablets or 2000 mg of dexamphetamine? Could it be? The anticipation!

Oh, I noticed a very large price discrepancy...it just boggles the mind! Okay, I usually pick up 100 5 mg dexies for A$30.35. That's the price I've always paid. Now, at the very same chemist, I go and fill my script of 200 tablets. They came in two pill bottles, each containing 100 tablets, and the price for BOTH of them is...A$45.25. What? It just doesn't make sense at all. It should have cost A$60.70. There shouldn't have been a discount as high as A$15.45 for just double the amount, it's not like a bulk discount for say 1000 tablets.

There's some things which somewhat makes sense, like 100 x 0.5 mg clonazepam costing A$18.85 and 100 x 2 mg clonazepam (from the same chemist, same brand - Paxam) costing A$26.15. That's not unusual in the pharmaceutical industry, mg to mg comparisons makes the 2 mg ones much cheaper, but still it's two different doses and I understand that the industry prices things like this. However, two similar strength and amount things like the dexamphetamine tablets shouldn't have such a large discount when bought in twos. Is it common for chemists to make such unusual price tiers?

Well, I'm happy it costs only 0.22625 cents for 5 mg of dexamphetamine, it's unbeatable compared to street prices for normal speed. Oh, and the doctor told me during the first consultation that he was wary of prescribing dexamphetamine coz there are people selling it for A$5 per 5 mg pill on the streets. I was talking to CT today and he mentioned that there are people selling it for A$4 at the university! That's per 5 mg pill! Absolutely crazy prices, I wouldn't pay A$4 per pill, but CT says that a lot of people will because they consider it to be "pure and clean" because it came from a pharmaceutical company. I would make quite a profit (A$750 net profit for 200 tablets) if I did that. Even if I love the stuff, selling it at that price and buying heaps of meth with the profit would be a feasible move. However, I'm adverse to the idea of selling stuff, I don't feel comfortable with it. I don't know why, but it just seems strange to me (I would not make a good businessman) so I wouldn't deal. Heck, I wouldn't even middleman for people, much less deal, I'm too paranoid for that to ever happen. Paranoid = worried all the time = poor quality of life. :)

I counted the pills and the original label was right after all...there is 100 pills per bottle, the two bottles total 200 pills as prescribed. The chemist label was tabulating both the total amount. Ah, you got me all excited for nothing! I just had to rush back to count the lovely little things! :)

Anyway, I also got a Repeat Authorization form which I need some help with. I can't get through the prescription mumbo jumbo. Any pharmacists, pharmacy school student or seasoned doctor shopper/prescription frauder out there? I'll appreciate it if you could explain how the repeats work:

The thing I don't understand is the three columns under "Original Prescription Transcription" (the part with DEXAMPHETAMINE TABLETS 5 MG). Below that are three columns: the first one is "Original Prescription Details", the second is "No. of times already dispensed (including original supply). If original not supplied insert '0'" and the third is "PRICED ITEMS ONLY". I'm interested in the first and second one, and I neglected to ask at the pharmacists just now. The first column has "2" printed in "No. of Repeats Authorized" and the second column has "1" indicating it has been dispensed once. Now, what I don't understand is, do I still have 2 refills left, or 1?

Personally, I think I have 2 left, because the original script says "Dexamphetamine 5mg (weird notation for 2) Bd (200) x 2 Rpts". That means I get two repeats right? Also, the bottle labels (from the chemist) has "2 Rpts" printed on each bottle. All my past bottles has "Nil Rpts" printed there. Unless pharmacists use a different discipline of meth, sorry math, the chemist labels and original script plainly says I have two repeats left for both the bottles, thus 800 pills (a delicious 4000 mg of dextroamphetamine sulfate) awaits me, with 400 pills available after 50 days and the other 400 pills available another 50 days past the first repeat date. However, the repeat authorization form seems to count the original prescription as a "repeat". Or maybe I just don't know how to read it. I'll appreciate it if anyone could shed some light, coz I don't feel like going to a pharmacy and asking. It would be...uncomfortable, considering the day I cashed it is listed. Heh. I don't want to look too eager, like I'm just chomping at the bit to get it filled. :p

The protagonist of the pictorial series! Presenting - Dexamphetamine

Okay, I remember saying that I'll go into why I'm going back for good in June. Get ready for this...it's coz I'm graduating! Hah! I did fail a lot of subjects, but I managed to finish at the same time as my college mates. Yeah! I had to pull a few strings and jump though (fiery) hoops to graduate in June, but I'm graduating! That means I'm going home for good in June, and it means that the repeats are wasted...I did ask whether I can cash the script at any pharmacy at the chemists, and the resident pharmacists said I can, but I have to make sure that 50 days have passed.

Yes, 50 days...each 100 tablet pill bottle is supposed to last me 25 days according to the 2 tablets, twice a day regiment I'm on for my narcolepsy. Oh, if this is the first time you're reading, I don't really have narcolepsy, so I don't need to take it according to instructions. I do suffer from amotivation though, and I'm self-medicating by 60-150 mg dexamphetamine (150 mg is the most I'll take in a single sitting, more than that is pushing it for me) or the methamphetamine equivalent, taken as needed (is there really any other way? ;))! Haha! I'm so unfunny sometimes I kill myself.

Dexamphetamine eating an ice cream.
Speech bubble: You know...I'm not really hungry...and the ice cream is much bigger than me!

Well, that means that I won't be able to use the repeats, but I should be glad coz the good doctor trusted me with a double dose, up front. Not that he has any reason not to, from his point of view. ;) I turn up regularly, clean shaven, no visible tattoos, dress conservatively, and always carry a backpack to reinforce my "university student" status. I'm also careful not to be tweaking when I go, I don't even drink caffeine! The dosage I'm taking is supposed to suppress my narcoleptic manifestations, so I can lead a normal life, not get me all strung out! In fact, I'm still sedated by benzos most of the time I go, it won't hurt to appear sleepy (might be good in fact, the doctor might up the dose) but it's not gonna look good to appear all spun out. Just simple things like taking care to be soft spoken, polite, respectful can go a long way in fostering trust and establishing an image of responsibility. P's and Q's my friend, P's and Q's...

I just thought of something...I listed "excessive daytime sleepiness" as one of my symptoms the first time and hey, I'm just realized I'm not being untruthful at all...I really am sleepy during the day! :) The cataplexy I described isn't a total story too...I do get that, especially after long meth runs. ;) Sleep paralysis w/hallucinations...yes, that too, it's especially prevalent when I'm in a K-hole. =D Perhaps I really do have narcolepsy. Jokes aside, I do experience EDS though, but probably not at the scale which narcoleptics suffer.

Dexamphetamine in: Drug deal in progress @ abandoned car park!
Speech bubble: You got the money?

Okay, I've spent too much time writing, I'm going to stop now. The repeat authorization is practically useless for me, I'll be back home in 50 days. I will go around and try to convince a sympathetic pharmacist to refill my dexamphetamine thought, I'll just say that I'm going home and I'll like to bring back a reasonable amount to keep my narcolepsy under control. Of course, I won't be bringing the stuff back, dextroamphetamine is NOT prescribed in Malaysia! That means it'll go under the drug laws, and I'll be treated like an amphetamine trafficker. Well, to be fair, dextroamphetamine is an amphetamine, and the recreational (fun) isomer of amphetamine at that, but still...Anyway, it's not listed in the Biro Pengawalan Farmaseutikal Kebangsaan (Malaysia National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau) database, so I won't be taking any back with me that's for sure! I'm may appear reckless in my posts, but I'm not stupid in real life. ;)

I'm not sure what they do to treat narcolepsy in Malaysia, a Google search didn't turn up anything useful, heck, this site is one of the returned hits, and I wouldn't say that my ramblings are useful. There are no amphetamine type drugs on Malaysia's approved list of medications, the only stimulant with recreational potential that's approved is methylphenidate (Ritalin) and that's indicated for ADHD. I wouldn't be surprised if narcoleptics are just given caffeine pills...I seriously hope that this is not true though, anyone with narcolepsy in Malaysia who can testify otherwise? Nevertheless, it's not going back with me, not a single pill. Uh, why am I talking about this anyway, the dexies never last more than a couple of days for me. I will try to squeeze out a repeat though, and gobble them up before I head home. =D

Failing that, I'm still very thankful to the good doctor for providing me with an extra 500 mg of dextroamphetamine, I would have only got 100 tablets otherwise, and another 25 day waiting period will see me back in Malaysia already. I'm not going to use tired, old tactics like "Oh, I lost my pills (or the variation "I lost my (insert object eg bag, car) with the pills in it")/someone stole it/robbed me/my pants pocket has a hole etc., can I have an early refill please?". On an effectiveness scale, that rates way down the bottom, along with "classics" like telling your teacher your dog ate your homework. :) Unless you have a police report or something, and well, that's on a whole new level that I'm not prepared to go to. Sharpening your theatrical skills in front of a doctor is one thing, having police as the audience is another.

I'm afraid I don't have the balls (alternate phrase for "not stupid enough" ;)) to walk into a police station and file a report that my bag containing my prescribed 200 dexamphetamine pills was stolen. Lodging false police reports is probably very illegal and besides, you'll be tying up law enforcement resources, and that's not very nice, considering they can be put to a better use like arresting users for possession and arresting users for possession. I kid! :) Please don't kick down my door in retaliation, it's a joke. I was already expecting today to be the final day I get a dexamphetamine pill bottle, and it probably is, but I got two instead of one, thanks to my doctor scripting me 200 pills upfront instead of my usual 100 pills. Very much appreciated indeed, and I'll be sure to put my favourite white pills to good use! Which means no more writing, damn, when will I stop?!?!? I'll work on the assignments now...really going to finish up now.

Dexamphetamine getting up close and personal with lingerie model!
Speech bubble: *sigh* If only I could get it up...

Anyway, if there's no pharmacist kind enough to refill me early based on my true predicament (going back, need the script, thanks), the dexamphetamine repeat authorization will be inherited by chemist_tip in honor of all his help, generosity and trust. :) That's 1000 mg (a gram) of dextroamphetamine sulfate if there's one repeat left and 2000 mg (2 grams) of dexamphetamine if there's two. He'll be the person who would most appreciate the script, considering the fact that the vast majority of my friends do not think the words "chemical" and "recreation" have anything in common. Oh, I just thought of someone else who likes dexamphetamine - Haggas, the guy who occasionally comments on the dexamphetamine related posts. Well, just wanted you to know that despite not knowing you in real life, I would sooner mail the script to you than see it go to waste. You sound like someone who really appreciates dexamphetamine. However, CT is a real life friend so I'm passing it to him. My apologies and thanks for reading! :)

Well, if you're wondering whether scripts can be passed around, the answer is yes (according to my experience). In my many trips to the chemist to cash in scripts of benzodiazepines and dextroamphetamine, not once have I been asked for any ID or my Medibank Private card. I've been asked for a Medicare card though, and the correct reply to that is "I'm using Medibank Private", and then everything's cool. They don't ask for your Medibank Private card or any other form of ID. As far as the chemist is concerned, the person holding the script is the owner of the script. This is not an issue with the repeat script though, since my name is in the "Medicare No." field (which means I don't have a Medicare card and is a private customer).

Dexamphetamine living LARGE at the train station. Text mentions a huge picture of a dex tablet and a final, farewell piece of poetry below. The End.
Speech bubble: I could buy myself with a Zone 1 daily ticket...

It'll be funny if CT goes personally to get the script filled though. Oh man, I'm laughing out loud in the middle of the night, just imagining that scenario. Heh! Imagine the look on the pharmacist's face when an obviously Caucasian male goes up to the prescription counter and hands in a script with an Asian name on it for 200 x 5 mg tablets of dexamphetamine (of all things). Haha! I wonder what the pharmacist's reaction would be...it will be priceless, that's for sure. I can think of two possible reactions and both of them cracked me up:

1. You've gotta be kidding me...(while alternating between looking at CT and the script)
2. Hmm...are you sure this prescription is for you? (with an unsure look and wanting to be tactful)

Heh! It would be a hoot eh? Imagine the possible range of reactions! There are jaded pharmacists, new pharmacists, polite pharmacists, rude pharmacists, interns etc etc. It would be so funny, but obviously CT won't find it funny if the pharmacist starts making phone calls, which is why he needs to get an Asian guy to fill the script. It would be smooth sailing then, coz they don't ask for ID, unless it's a ludicrous situation like the one above. :)

Okay that's enough from me, I just cut and pasted this into Microsoft Word to check the word count - it's close to 6,000 words...I could have written an assignment instead. Oh well, hope you all enjoyed reading this post, I sure enjoyed writing about it - a long post to mark the end of my "legal, pure speed from your neighborhood pharmacy" days. This is probably the last time I ever get amphetamines (and the isolated dextro isomer (it's more recreational) at that!) by walking into a pharmacy and I've still not gotten over the fact that people can do that here, with the right combination of words to a sympathetic doctor. :) It would be hard to go back to Malaysia's meth pills/street meth when I've been spoilt by the pharmaceutical grade, dosage measured, content ensured, hygienically packaged, and low priced amphetamines here. I wouldn't be getting 1 gram of speed (without cutting and binding agents, actual weight is substance quantity) for RM100 (A$45) that's for sure. I don't think I'll get off on one RM45 (A$20) speed pill with my current tolerance either - not when I've been taking large doses of dextroamphetamine and methamphetamine. This was what I meant in the beginning regarding stopping - the prices back home just don't appeal to me anymore. Goodbye dexamphetamine, I will miss you!

Farewell, D5

Dexamphetamine...you will be missed...
Little white pills smelling of sweet chalk...
D - a perpetual smile
- - a single score signifying focus, concentration and single-mindedness
5 - delivering 5 mg of dextroamphetamine sulfate, guaranteed
Versatile, ready to be crushed and insufflated (together with a whole lotta binders, all the better to clog my nostrils with :))
Or eaten, providing quick stimulation within 30 minutes
Reliable...you always deliver what you promise
How I choose to use you is the only variable...

The ritual of opening the screw on cap,
Feeling the tangible weight of the bottle resting on my palm,
Pulling the thick cotton out,
Giving the bottle a good shake,
The pills rolling out into my open hand,
The way I go "two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve" (and often more)...
Sometimes I have to shake more out,
Sometimes I have to put excess pills in,
Always on an empty stomach, with urinary alkalinizers at regular periods...
Making you work harder, longer, stronger
I will miss the other things too...
Like holding my urine for prolonged periods of time...:)
Another effort to make you last longer
The bladder pressure almost seems pleasurable.

The thing I will miss most about you...
"The score" - a symbol of the focus, the concentration and the single-mindedness,
The productivity, the mental clarity, the speed of thought you give...
and yes, the euphoria and the rush when you announce your presence.
The urge to fiddle and fix minor things, you bless me with the gift of perfectionism that I never had,
Turbo charging my brain, making hard tasks easy,
Boring tasks fun, repetitive work pleasurable.
The greatest catalyst of all, things get done quickly when you're around
Speed - you've truly earned that name.
Dexamphetamine...traveling at the speed of light...
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Muahahaha!
Muahahahaha!
Muahahahahaha!
Muahahahahahaha!

What prompts this slightly insane and apparently unprovoked laughter? I'm writing...it'll be up in 30 minutes or so! :) Wait for it, my dearest readers!!! Thanks from the bottom of my heart! :)

Update: Erm...I'm getting sidetracked, but it's on the way! Promise! :)

Update #2: My apologies about the delay, but it'll just be more for you (the interested readers) to read when it's done. :)

Dead parrot. Rainbow. Tree bark. Walk with me...

Dead parrot. Too colorful. But real.

Rainbow. Caulfield Plaza. Nice.

Rainbow. Monash University Caulfield Campus. Picture of the Day.

Tree bark. Pointless? But for texture stock photo collection.

NOFX - Monosyllabic Girl [sixthseal.com]
(right click, save target as)
[0.54 minutes 128 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 0.86 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 deleted]

I take her down to the aquarium, she says 'shark'
I take her to the planetarium, she says 'dark'
I take her to the seaside where she likes to spin and twirl
You know, she says 'sure' and 'cool' and 'yeah'
She's my monosyllabic girl

I take her to the university, she says 'huh?'
I take her to her anniversary, she says 'one!'
I take her to the jewelry store
I say 'diamond', she says 'pearl'

Oh, everyone knows I'm in love with a monosyllabic girl
You know, everyone knows I'm in love with a monosyllabic girl

Rainy day. Cold. Mushroom flush. Walk with me...

Promising. Too orange. Didn't stain blue.

Squishy. Strange. Didn't stain blue.

Two strains. One promising. Didn't stain blue.

Kinda promising. But. Didn't stain blue.

Related links:

Mushroom Hunting I is here [sixthseal.com].

Mushroom Hunting II is here [sixthseal.com].

Mushroom Hunting III is here [sixthseal.com].

I just finished my assignment with 5 minutes to spare! :) The CD has just been burnt and I'm all ready to head to campus to print the documents, bind them, attach the CD and SUBMIT THE ASSIGNMENT! Damn, it feels good to finish it in the nick of time! w00t! Here's a track from Linkin Park - it's cheesy, but you can't deny it's catchy! =D My victory song, motherfuckers! Oops...profanity. I don't mean literally, I'm using it in a "buddy" way, ya know. :)

Linkin Park - Faint [sixthseal.com]
(right click, save target as)
[2:42 minutes 128 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 2.47 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 deleted]

I am a little bit of loneliness, a little bit of disregard
Handful of complaints but I can't help the fact that everyone can see
these scars
I am what I want you to want, what I want you to feel
But it's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you, to just believe
this is real
So I let go, watching you, turn your back like you always do
Face away and pretend that I'm not
But I'll be here coz you're all that I've got

(I can't feel the way I did before)
(Don't turn your back on me)
(I won't be ignored)
(Time won't heal this damage anymore)
(Don't turn your back on me)
(I won't be ignored)

I am a little bit insecure, a little unconfident
Coz you don't understand I do what I can, but sometimes I don't make
sense
I am what you never wanna say, but I've never had a doubt
It's like no matter what I do, I can't convince you, for once just to hear
me out
So I let go, watching you, turn your back like you always do
Face away and pretend that I'm not
But I'll be here coz you're all that I've got

(I can't feel the way I did before)
(Don't turn your back on me)
(I won't be ignored)
(Time won't heal this damage anymore)
(Don't turn your back on me)
(I won't be ignored)

Now
Hear me out now
You're gonna listen to me, like it or not
Right now
Hear me out now
You're gonna listen to me, like it or not
Right now

I can't feel the way I did before
Don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored

to turn time into complete assignments! ;)

[Edit: If there're any experienced photographers out there, I'll appreciate it if you could give me a couple of pointers about the optimal exposure modes, shutter speeds, ISO sensitivity etc to be able to capture a still motion of the powder being insufflated up the straw i.e. visible grains traveling up the straw in stop motion without a strobe light (don't have one). Thanks!]

NOFX - Three On Speed
(right click, save target as)
[1:20 minutes 192 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 1.84 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 deleted]

All we need (a little methamphetamine)
Three on speed (a little subversality)
What we do (it's nothing you know about)
Who you are (definitely not one of us)

All we need is a little pick me up
I don't really care if it's clean or if it's cut
So give it to me now or you're gonna bring us down, yeah hey!

Give me some speed
Yeah!

Who are them? (they don't know shit about us)
Different strokes (because we wanna live our)
Life faster (gonna burn the candle down on)
All three ends (live fast, die fun)

All we need is a little pick me up
I don't really care if it's clean or if it's cut
So give it to me now or your gonna bring us down, yeah hey!
Wahoo!

Hot damn!

It has been x days since you've slept and eaten. You've either exhausted your supply of meth or your tolerance is getting so high, you've decided to reserve the remainder of the stash for another day. You're jumping at shadows, constantly looking behind your shoulder at non-existent people who're out to get you, startled at sudden noises, and a friend tapping your shoulder is likely to make you jump out of your skin. The good effects of meth is over, but sleep is still impossible. What happens now?

1. Do you have a benzodiazepine (Valium, Xanax, Klonopin etc)?

Yes. Go to 2.
No. Can't help you much. If you have weed, smoke some to help you eat, otherwise force yourself to eat and drink yourself to sleep.

2. Do you have alcohol?

Yes. Go to 3.
No. Take more benzos and go to 3.

3. Do you have cannabis (weed, grass, pot)?

Yes. Go to 4.
No. Take the benzos and alcohol. Try to force yourself to eat and go to sleep.

4. You're set for the perfect comedown!

My personal preference for a comedown benzodiazepine is clonazepam (Klonopin). This is due to its relatively long duration and the anticonvulsant [rxlist.com] properties. The first one will ensure that you won't suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and will help you stay sedated for quite a long time. The second one is very nice after long meth runs, due to the muscle aches and other associated problems. I noticed that it'll also relax your muscles very noticeably, which is conducive for relaxation and sleep. :)

The only issue related to clonazepam is the long time it takes to kick in (for some people). It can take 1-2 hours, but personally, I've never noticed that it takes that long! Don't worry about it if you just came off a meth run, chances are, you've not eaten anything, so your stomach will be so empty that absorption happens really quickly! Personally, it only takes 15-30 minutes max for it to kick in after meth runs. I do not like Valium (diazepam) because it has an active metabolite that stays in you for quite a long time. Xanax (alprazolam) has a short half life (read the part about waking up in the middle of the night). However, feel free to pick and mix benzos if the situation warrants it. =D Please know the benzodiazepine equivalency dosages before mixing! I recommend taking a higher dose of the long lasting benzos and a lower dose of the short acting benzos. I've taken 2 mg Xanax + 10 mg Valium + 3 mg Klonopin combos to put me into slumber land within minutes. Heh.

Optional: Multivitamin and mineral supplement.

Here's what I usually do:

Preparations:
Cook some food if you need to. You'll be really tired after your run so I recommend something easy like ramen, but it'll be best to have something pre-cooked (like a take away rice box) in the fridge which you can just reheat in the microwave.
Wash your bong and fill it with water. Shred an amount of weed you want to smoke. Load the cone with one hit to be ready. Put lighter beside bong.

1. Take benzodiazepines (personally, I take 4 mg clonazepam - change the dosage according to personal tolerance) with water.
2. Take a shower. By the time you're done the clonazepam (or your benzo of choice) should have taken effect.
3. Start drinking beer. I don't recommend liquor because it's easy to drink too much and end up with a hangover. Also, be careful when combining alcohol and benzodiazepines. My personal limit is to never exceed a 6-pack, but YMMV.
4. Cook your food or even better, reheat your pre-cooked meal. It's worthy to mention that during your meth run, your body has gone into starvation mode from not being fed anything except water. Thus, anything you eat after will be put into your fat stores in anticipation of the next starvation period. This is not an issue if you do meth very often, but it might be of interest to people who are conscious of their weight. I recommend taking one meal that is the usual size of what you normally eat for a meal, don't exceed that and you'll be fine.
5. Put on a no-brainer stoner type movie or TV series. Just anything that you don't need to think about that's easy to watch and you don't mind watching halfway. I recommend short TV episodes like South Park.
6. Smoke cannabis. Fast. ;) There should be no meth related paranoia present due to the wonderful benzodiazepines you've consumed.
7. Eat your food before it gets cold. :) (Optional: If you have a multivitamin supplement, take it when you're 1/4 into your food. It gets absorbed better with food.)
8. You should be very ready to sleep by the time you're done eating. =D

Sweet, sweet comedowns. You'll probably be bumping into stuff and all that while having a sleepy, contented smile on your face. It is possible to wake up 8 hours later, but that's not the best way to recover. I'll allocate at least 12 hours for sleeping on this one. You'll be feeling fine again the next day, ready to tweak again (hmm...) or even better, make sure that the next day is free so you can just relax around and drink some beer (not till you get a hangover) and sleep again for a perfect recovery when you wake up again! :)

This is based on personal experience and thus, it may not be a good idea for everyone.

Caution:
Combining benzodiazepines and alcohol in large amounts can be dangerous and possibly fatal! Know your limits and don't exceed it!

Original review for The Weblog Review here: Digitalbranch.net [theweblogreview.com].

There is also another review in there by another reviewer.

Digitalbranch.net

The first thing I noticed about Digitalbranch.net is the strong Christian lean that's evident from the introduction splash page. The weblog describes itself as "One man's thoughts, poetry, and writings - an attempt to reach humanity and the people of God" and there's a quote from Jeremiah as well as several Christian oriented webring memberships. The site is owned by Mark Jedrzejczyk and it's been online for quite a while.

The archives dates back to October 2002, but the "first" post on the 8th of October goes into the hosting troubles that Mark has encountered, resulting in the site being offline for a period of time. The pre-October 2002 archives are not fully up yet, but Mark has done a good job in re-posting several of the more noteworthy entries. He's also clearly marked the re-posts as such (usually with a header detailing the original post's timeframe) and I found this to be a nice touch.

The blog posts are mostly about issues related to Christianity and Mark's poetries and stories, which also tends to have a biblical motif, from my subjective opinion. This can limit the site's potential audience, but I found it interesting to read about Mark's struggle with depression during the end of 2002 and early 2003 (from what I can see) and his ways of dealing with it within a Christian context. Mark might take exception with this though, as he mentions that "sad" would be a better adjective and "wanderer" an even more suitable one in his 9th April 2003 post.

I've also found his commentaries to be interesting, particularly the one in February 2002 regarding "apostolicity" and his views about atheism and the meaning of life in May 2003. I consider myself a Christian and I'm fairly familiar with the scripture, so I can relate to Mark's posts, although his views are slightly more fundamentalist than mine. Unfortunately, the blog does not get updated very often, each month averages about 10 posts, but most of the posts are well thought out writings, and that somewhat makes up for the irregular posts.

Besides the main blog, there's also a sidebar with links to articles, poetry and stories that Mark has written. There's a very nice feature in those individual categories where the "last updated" date is listed on the top. This is a good way of telling if the menu items have been recently added to, and it certainly seems to be something that will be appreciated by the readers.

The articles are further subdivided to General Writings (issues related to Christians), General Textual Studies (Mark's writings on various books in the bible), General Topical Studies (history of Christianity and other related issues), and Mark's senior paper. There is an article in General Writings titled "The Problem of Christian Apathy" which I felt was a very interesting read. I can see that this is a common occurrence in many Christians today, including myself, and I was moved by this article because of the strong resonance the subject has with me.

Revelation is my favorite book in the bible (as can be seen from my site's URL) and I enjoyed Mark's studies on that book entitled "Exegesis of Revelation 13:1-8" in General Textual Studies. Most of his writings have a bibliography at the end, which is another nice touch as interested readers can follow up the topic based on his citations. The poetry section is nicely populated as well, but I can't really comment on poetry since I don't have any background in this. The stories section has a couple of stories, and I recommend that interested readers take a look at "Anguish", which I interpreted as a metaphor for life after death.

The other links from the right hand sidebar is a Recommended Reading list and a message board. I actually read Mark's recommendation on C.S. Lewis's "A Grief Observed" before reading his blog, and that was where I first noticed Mark's experience with sadness (to use his term). I have heard a lot about this book, but unfortunately, my readings of C.S. Lewis's works is limited to his Narnia series that I read during my childhood. The message board is a good feature, but it's not being used much by the readers of the site. The final items on the sidebar are links to webrings, an awards section (where Mark lists the web awards his site has acquired) and a search feature.

The design of Digitalbranch.net is clean and efficient, I liked the small sidebar and the "directory style" browsing feature. By this, I'm referring to the hyperlinks that appear at the top when browsing into the categories (eg Articles / General Writings / How to Pray). This allows for fast and easy navigation even when browsing "deep" into the menu items. This is a very nice touch indeed.

The site is also optimized for users with a lower screen resolution, which is a rarity nowadays. The only "flaw" I could find in the design is that I was expecting the large banner on top to be clickable and I've clicked on the static image in vain several times before realizing that navigation to the main page is provided by the "Home" link in the sidebar and also the top of blog pages. Design is not my forte, but I feel that the large banner would be an ideal anchor to the main page.

Well, the site's emphasis on Christian related issues would limit the appeal to readers who's interested in those issues, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Mark has thought about expanding the site's focus to include more subject matters, but decided that doing that will involve writing about "issues (that) are not generally near and dear to my heart". I respect Mark's decision and I agree that having a strong focal point on Christianity has its appeal to similar minded readers. I recommend that everyone clicks through to Digitalbranch.net if you're even slightly interested in religion (and even if you're not). At the very least, it'll be an insight into Mark's devotion, which I've found to be nothing less than impressive. I'm giving it a 5 for the unique content and the interesting articles and stories.

This site was reviewed on 2003-05-18 by sixthseal.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
sixthseal felt that Digitalbranch.net deserved a rating of 5.0

Link to site: Digitalbranch.net [digitalbranch.net].

The site owner's reply:

Digitalbranch: review by The Weblog Review

Sunday, May 18, 2003
posted by Mark Jedrzejczyk | 08:05 pm

This site was just reviewed by The Weblog Review. The review for my site can be seen here: (review). It, in fact, received good reviews so you should take a look at it!
(As if I'd post this if I received terrible reviews. I kid oh so much.)

I'm rather pleased to read that others see depth in this site - therefore, the review does mean a lot to me. Thanks to the Weblog Review for the positive thoughts!

Original post here [digitalbranch.net].

Changes: The links of the original Digitalbranch.net post has been changed to open up in a new window.

The winds blew with much gusto today...so much that the zest of it managed to jam the stairway door shut with sheer force. I was getting my laundry from the dryers and got trapped outside with the stairway resident advisor. We tried to get it open with another guy from the next stairway, but it was really jammed shut. Our RA went to get the maintenance guys while I waited outside for 20 minutes with my large basket of laundry. Every resident who passed by thought I was locked out and asked if I needed their keys (all stairway doors are locked now). The RA came back later and said that the maintenance guys are on the way and she went to the back to see if she could get someone to wake up and try opening the door from the inside. Before she could, one of my neighbors came down and opened the door. Sweet salvation! :) It can be opened from the inside, just not from the outside, coz of the way the lock is jammed past the placeholder.

Anyway, here's the semi-regular MP3 (MP3 of the Week?). I'm getting close to my monthly 5 gig bandwidth allowance, this month saw two spikes in traffic from The Shroomery [shroomery.org] forums and an Erowid [erowid.org] experience report veritas submitted last year, which just got added a couple of days ago (with direct linked images, no less). Both are quite painful, especially the Erowid one...I was surprised at the bandwidth that was eaten, Erowid must be generating heavy traffic even in experience reports of conventional pharmaceuticals. Anyway, get the MP3 while you can. This is an old one from NOFX, came out in '94 and I just love this track, the lyrics are funny. Satire at it's finest. Heh.

NOFX - Whatever Didi Wants [sixthseal.com]
(right click, save target as)
[3:01 minutes 96 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 2.07 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 deleted]

Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it

I wouldn't walk 500 miles
When I could fly coach, but almost anything
I wouldn't swim, across the Nile
When I could get a amebic dysentery [emedicine.com]

I would do almost anything for you
Coz if there's anything you want
I'll probably get it
You tell me what you need
I'll try not to forget it
You need someone to blame
I'll say I said it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it

I wouldn't climb the highest mountain
Could get a blister, but almost anything
I wouldn't throw, coins in a fountain
I may be needing to make a phone call

I'll call you collect whenever I could
Coz if there's anything you want
I'll probably get it
Just tell me what you need
I'll try not to forget it
You need someone to blame
I'll say I said it
Whatever Didi wants she's gonna get it

You are so beautiful
You are so beautiful to me
We're gonna try and get it right!

It doesn't seem like you're a million
Miles away, no.
But maybe one or two
That doesn't mean, I never loved you
I love you long time, when you're on top of me

I love you as much as anyone could
Coz if there's anything you want
I'll probably get it
Just tell me what you need
I'll try not to forget it
You need someone to blame
I'll say I said it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it

Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it
Whatever Didi wants, she's gonna get it

or alternative routes of administration, ghetto style. ;)

Yes, this is a stupid and pointless post but I'm in the mood for stupid and pointless posts.

I wanted to give my mucous membranes a break, and methamphetamine hydrochloride is pretty versatile, so:

#1 Meth on a cigarette

Method: Rolled a Marlboro around a foil of meth.

Yeah, I can feel the buzz when I smoked this cigarette, but it seems wasteful to me. It can't compare to smoking with a glass pipe though. To my understanding, methamphetamine needs a low heat source to be activated for inhalation purposes, so a fair bit is getting burnt and you can't drag on a cigarette all the time (at least I'll be impressed if you can). :) It's nice for a change, smoking while tweaking is very fun and compulsive. I don't know why this phenomenon exists, and it seems to be true only for existing smokers. I've heard that it's because nicotine also triggers dopamine release, so the "reward smoking" urge is so strong while tweaking. Personally, I can't stop chain smoking while tweaking, and my "nicotine tolerance" is vastly increased for some reason. I usually can't smoke more than 5 cigarettes in a row, but while on meth, I can smoke as many as I want, it all feels as good as the first one and there's no characteristic dizziness or nausea that comes with high doses of nicotine. This is true for MDMA as well, very strange trend that's not all that good for your lungs.

#2 "Chasing the meth" =D

Method: Pinch of meth on a foil, heat applied below and vapors inhaled

the smoke burnt my eyes, it was black and quite voluminous so I couldn't get it all. The smoke "tasted" VERY unpleasant. There was a distinct "sweet" (and not in a good way!) taste to the smoke and I have this disturbing feeling that I just inhaled something really quite carcinogenic! It made my (only!) straw smell like burnt plastic too. :( As you can see, I'm using a truncated normal plastic straw now. I lost all the Cones placeholder straws [sixthseal.com], which are the perfect size and length for insufflation. I miss those things, normal straws "retain" powder and more effort is required to get the substance into an optimal position for maximum absorbency. Not going to be repeating this, I don't know what's being used to cut the meth, and I don't want to be inhaling just anything. *cough* My lungs hurt. It did give me a bit of a rush though, but it's too "chargy", lots of teeth clenching and I couldn't sit properly on my chair (I had to squat). =D

P/S - This is a really old post that I found. The events described in the post are long past and I no longer have anything illegal in my possession! Seriously, I'm not just saying this to "cover my ass", I really don't have anything, or I would be partaking right now instead of going to sleep. :p No, I'm not paranoid!

I like meth. I like meth a lot. No, seriously. You don't know how much I like it. I love it so much I make posts like this. I love it so much my teeth are falling to bits. :)

One meal in three days. One sleep cycle in three days. Sustainable. Perfect.

What a meth I've gotten myself into. ;)

Disclaimer: This is not a serious post, I do not possess anything illegal. Meth? I don't know what you're talking about officer...

Seriously though, it's all been consumed.

You've all caught me in one of my less-than-lucid moments. Sorry. :)

The nonsense I write while tweaking...

I went to check my mail and found not one, but two envelopes from The Men's Gallery (a strip club in Melbourne). I've stopped wondering about my interesting mail [sixthseal.com], but I'm puzzled about why they felt it was necessary to mail me 4 free tickets (each envelope had two tickets) admitting two people each. The four tickets are enough to admit 8 people, would anyone like them? There are two shows, one's on the 16th (yesterday) and the other one is on the 23rd of May. Oh, and sexually explicit entertainment may offend. =D I'm not really interested in going, I wonder when I'll start getting mail that targets my interests like "Online Pharmacy in Australia - NO PRESCRIPTIONS NECESSARY! We're included FREE sample packs of Dexamphetamine and Xanax as a token of goodwill!". Heh! In my dreams, maybe. ;)

P/S - I was kidding about that last bit.

Amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric). I've never had this mushroom before, they're different from magic mushrooms, as the primary content of amanita muscaria is muscimol and ibotenic acid (which gets converted to muscimol by the body). Read more about amanitas here [erowid.org]. I had 6.5 grams of prepared (baked caps and dried skins) amanita muscaria courtesy of chemist_tip. Thanks buddy! I'm writing this now at T +7 hours +. I consumed the amanitas at 5 pm and the trip is wearing off now, but the after effects are still felt, still a bit confused.

Mmm...baked amanitas look, smell and taste wonderful

Anyway, CT baked the amanita muscaria last week to potentiate the effects. There's an article in Erowid about how baking decarboxylates ibotenic acid into muscimol - basically, baking the amanitas before consuming it raises the muscimol levels and thus makes the amanitas stronger as more ibotenic acid is converted into muscimol.

Substance: Amanita muscaria
Dosage: 6.5 grams (mixed material of dried caps (baked) and cap skin (dried))

6.5 grams of baked caps and (peeled) dried cap skins of amanita muscaria. I ate everything in this picture. Mmm...

The amanitas I consumed are a mix of all caps (baked) and the skin (just dried) on an empty stomach. I ate them as is, they taste wonderful, baking adds a lot to the flavor! There was a nice "french fries" taste to the baked caps and the dried skins tastes good too - mushroomy taste, like shitake mushrooms actually. Hmm...I think I'm repeating some stuff that's already in the trip log, so I'll just paste that here in its original and unedited form (beware typos):

If you're not interested in reading the trip report, scroll down to the end if you'll like to see a picture of drying peeled cap skins.

took at 5 pm
last meal: 17 hours before
very nice tasting, the baked amanita caps tasts LOVELY, like some kind of baked french fries. the dried cap skins wasn't too bad too, tasted nice as well.

5:40
was getting slightly sleepy without realizing it. and i've read about the nausea, but god, i didn't know it was this bad. it just suddenly started. the nausea i mean. not eating for 17 hour beforhand is prob a mistake. ugh, the nausea is really bad, like the ones you get on third plateu dxm doses. feel an urge to throw up, and i'm very dizzy too. damn. the feeling is like the nausea and diziness you get after smoking wayyyy to many cigarretes. gonna lie down for a while.

just got up to tell you all VERY DIZZY and i notice the saliva effects too. i'm also think i'm getting gastric coz of the way my stomach is churning.salavating more than usual even before drinking water.

i felll askeep just now and suddendly wope up beofre 10. i don't rememembre dreaming or taking the mushrooms and just sat up for almost 5 minutes there not knowking anything. i didn't realise i was inder the influence until i knoticed i was repepating "shut now" and" 'recipient" while looking back and forth at two nacent peoole. i know the pic are thise them byt sge looke anyway, so there's like three google for 3 pll to "go for it" and "recipent"/

its hard to type.i saw that my hard of view is sharrting to get hard now. when i see a line it rend tosee another like with the "comp" "abuse" words. damn i didn't reliuase but talkimg will be hard on this one,the visual field is too fast for me fo one thint. when i look left ahright as the keyboard once, it's like "helllo nad tkae care"

sorry, tellying is hardf since i'mt thinkbg one character bakc is correct/i keepm moving my head to the northwest.i can tell i'm very under the influnce.it was go keep going northwest. keeps on upperright uppperright and hehe oops i thought my digicam was my mouse, i kep themside by sode controlled with a lit of effects but it does keep shiny and i have be my on my toes all the time. yep, lazy to correct the typos too.

walkked to the toilet just nopw and realized my motor skills isn't as stable as i thought it was. fell down while putting on toilet slippers. things are strange too, found mysefl very open to any suggestions, can be quite a dangerous drug in this context. and now my head heard this it keeps wanting to lean to the left and grabbed my mouse receptor instead of my mouse.

i think amanita is clear for me. i have no "mental noise", totally silent for the occational "all clear" that its repeating now. it can repeat anything too, but just one phase. I notice it went "boom, boom boom" just now, but otherwise the mental clarity is good,. i don't think i can talk properfly though but i can try if confronted.

the effects are mainly mental. the only "visuals" i saw was a very fast moving field of vision. you dunno how hard it was to type those few words. my brain keeps repeating "television" and another phrase i forgot to comfuse me. it wanted me to help something else, i think. oh i rememeber now! it was "help" my brain keeeps repeating "help" in a male voice like someone is in trouble. the vouce sounds middle aged, caucasian, and weakening, like he's drownking (not in water) in something like weak sand. quicksand i mean.

ah i can see i'm confusing you too. anyway, i was just talkking about a filed of vision who like to instist going "went of form" come her" to eat oothter ahd i looked back and forth even thought I'm tyoping now. strabge, :) ate a time tam. wasn't aware of the taste at first but its great now. at firt duriring the crunching stage, it feels large and volimuniis in my mouth, but tasted dry, there wasn't any taste until a movied it back a bit towards by throat. then the nice taste came. i just notice i dropped a piece of chocolate on my hard and i was surprised at this new brown bit on my left hand. i was thinking is it a bug that landed on my hand or did i grow a new strange brown wart?

Its not the first nor the seond but i didn't want to eat the small bit after i made the bug association. ah, now you scared me a bit.i don't like bugs and i subconsiouly shuddered a littke as i bruch it offed. damn. heh. surprised myself that i should shudder even know my mind knows that its obviously not some bug but a piece of chocolate.

oh i just noticed that i was doing minor twitching tooo. little things i can't control like my right hand twiched a acouple of seconds ago. which is strange (damn my brain insisted on writing "why" as strange" but i won) because i had a couple of klonopins - clonazepam (not only a benzo but an enti epilepsy medication because it supresses epileptic fits) with beer last nite (or early this morning) while coming down off meth so i should still be feeling it now.

it feels like dxm too, kinda "dissociative like". funny. i'm going to smoke some weed and eat some food now.

i don't know why but it seems that i like to wave now. like move to side to side.. oh damn i lost a bit of infor by not saving. btw, i haven't eaten, walking feels unsteady right now, will try again later.

short term memory is either affected or overrided by some other effect. can't do stuff quickly. wanted to resize the amanita pics and took ages. keep going to wrong folders that seemed "right". keep going to wrong menus that seemed "wrong". sometimes i even know they're wronf before clicking the folders and yet my hand goes to click it. what a paradox!

yeah it things can be quite blur. trying to do things is hard since your mind seems to have a mind of its own and want to do other things. so you end up doing things that was not what you wanted. this is like picking up wrong things - want to pick up keys, pick up fan instead, really strange stuff. hmm...

12:00 am
feeling a return to baseline. aftereffects still present but not tripping anymore. its been 7 hours since ingestion. lasted fairly long, nice, considering shrooms just lasted 3 hours that time. mushies effects are better though.

Peeled amanita muscaria cap skins drying on a piece of paper on a box

My personal experience today did not find anything extremally noteworthy about amanita muscaria. It does feel (caught myself spelling "fill" twice) interesting, but there's no real visuals associated with it besides the "everything is moving fast, the world has a fast framerate" feeling. As you can see, I accidentally fell asleep in the early stages of the trip. I may have slept though the peak, but I'm under the impression that sleeping the first phase (sedating phase) off is common and people will automatically waking up during the stimulating/psychedelic phase. Personally, I did suddenly wake up for no reason and was disoriented for a while before remembering the amanitas I had previously consumed. I sat there for 5 minutes wondering why I'm feeling weird without realizing that I was under the influence coz I forgot all about amanitas. :)

I do appreciate this experience though, I like trying new things and amanita muscaria's effects are interesting. It's markedly different from a magic mushroom trip, which is understandable as the contents are totally different. The experience sure is different from any substance I've tried before, although comparisons can be made - a cross between (magic mushrooms(psilocybin)/LSD - part of these effects are present) / (DXM/ketamine - slightly disassociative) / (benzodiazepines - memory problems). That doesn't do it justice though, the effects are different from anything I've tried before and I found the trip just plain weird because of the strange effects. Eh, I'm still a little confused now, would have been better to write this tomorrow, but I feel like getting it done today. :)

I would try it again at a higher dose, it's quite interesting, not "noteworthy interesting" but "interesting interesting". Certainly worth a second trip, and I'll stay awake during the sedative stage next time to see if there's anything interesting in there. The nausea is really bad for me though, I'll make it a point to smoke cannabis during the trip next time, I didn't want to "cloud" my experience today so I didn't. I prefer to try substances I'm new to on it's own the first time. My apologies for all the typos and confusing statements in this post, I'm still feeling the mild aftereffects even after 7 hours 41 minutes. Oh, and I changed the POTD to one of amanita muscaria to honor my first experience with this nice mushroom. :)

I took this photo below Caulfield B Block after my tutorials today. I like the way the construction people cut slopes into the sandy ground. It kinda aligns with the steps in the backdrop.

I see that the convocation ceremony is today for some people too. It feels strange watching them mill around with their families in their graduation regalia. I'll be doing that soon too since this is my final semester. I just have one last month left. :)

Mmm...vomit @ Roberts Hall

Mmm...urine @ Richardson Hall

The regurgitation stained toilet bowl has been left uncleaned for almost a week now. :) It looks like the person with poor aiming skills behind this missed the bowl by a large margin, most of it ended up towards the side. I think I'll make this one Picture of the Day. The second picture is of a clogged up urinal, I thought the color was interesting and the amount is quite voluminous (as you can see) so I took a photo of the toilet. I like the Webster's definition:

In man, the urine is a clear, transparent fluid of an amber color and peculiar odor, with an average density of 1.02. The average amount excreted in 24 hours is from 40 to 60 ounces (about 1,200 cubic centimeters). Chemically, the urine is mainly an aqueous solution of urea, salt (sodium chloride), and uric acid, together with some hippuric acid and peculiar pigments. It usually has an acid reaction, owing to the presence of acid phosphates of soda or free uric acid. Normally, it contains about 960 parts of water to 40 parts of solid matter, and the daily average excretion is 35 grams (540 grains) of urea, 0.75 gram (11 grains) of uric acid, and 16.5 grams (260 grains) of salt. Abnormally, it may contain sugar as in diabetes, albumen as in Bright's disease, bile pigments as in jaundice, or abnormal quantities of some one or more of the normal constituents.

Yes, I really have nothing better to do. :)

This week is Week 10!!!

Week 10! I thought it was Week 11!!! Who told me that it's Week 11? Fess up now, I know someone did, or I wouldn't have got this idea into my mind. I need to...thank you, coz that really put my ass into gear. :p

Things that have gone wrong (in a good way) because I thought this week is Week 11:

I submitted my GSC2714 Alcohol and Drug Use essay on Monday and wrote "Sorry about submitting this late, I didn't realize it was due on Week 10". I wasn't late after all because this week is Week 10!

I actually did my GSC2714 Alcohol and Drug Use presentation today. Oops...I was scheduled for Week 11, but I thought this week WAS Week 11. No harm done anyway, there wasn't anyone else in contention for the presentation spot and I think I did okay in the presentation even though I fudged up my lines a bit.

I...uh, drank a lot of coffee because I wanted to stay up late today to finish my CSE3151 Network Performance assignment that's due on Thursday Week 11, which I thought is tomorrow, but it's really next week. Duh!

Oh well, at least I got most of my work out of the way. It feels good to "gain" a week. =D Anyway, I've been messing around with the blog last night and earlier today coz of that gaining a week thing. I read up about the Movable Type tags and made some changes to the layout. The things that have changed are:

Recent Comments
I've added some tags to display the 8 most recent comments with a link (Go!) straight to the comments section of the post in question. I did that using #comments which is somewhat of a hack, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Oh well. This is replacing the previous "Recent Entries" sidebar, which displayed the 5 most recent posts. I doubt anyone actually uses that since the main page has 14 days back anyway. Or am I mistaken and there's people that actually like that navigation bit? The comments are set to be truncated at 50 characters, so it won't take up too much space. The nick of the person who commented can be clicked to open up a new window to their URL (if they provided one) or their email if they didn't. This doesn't really work well though, when you click on an older post, it only shows the comments for that post and if you click on an older month, it shows the 8 most "recent" comments for that month. However, it works fine on the main page, so I guess that's okay.

Sticky Posts
I've wanted to do this for a while and finally got around to getting it done. I was planning to add another field in SQL to mark a post as "sticky", but Movable Type's category tags gives the same functionality without having to modify the database so I used that instead. It makes things easier by automatically showing all posts that is marked "sticky" in the sidebar. Veritas has a link to show all of his posts, I feel that this is appropriate as his posts are very specific (almost always about substances) and it would be good to have an archive of his posts without making too many posts "sticky" as that clutters up the sidebar. I'm not doing that for myself because my posts are more general, so there isn't much point in implementing that. There is a problem with the way the tags work though - clicking on an archived month will only show the sticky posts that is chronologically behind that month. Thus, if you click on the first month, you can't see any of the sticky posts. Oh well. :)

Persistent sidebar
I've made the sidebar to be always visible, don't know how you all feel about that, but it does make navigation slightly easier and makes the site more cohesive. I just took the sidebar stuff out and put it into a template to be included automatically by every page. I read that there's an easy way to create an "About me" page based on the Movable Type tags, but I didn't bother to go through that, so I've changed all the about pages to PHP so I can just include the sidebar template easily without having to read up on the tags. Unfortunately, while doing the sidebar, I lost all the blog links! I haven't done backups of the site since the time I changed hosts so I had to rebuild everything from memory. My bad, I cut the sidebar stuff out and cut some other thing again before pasting, thus overwriting the sidebar stuff. :( My memory isn't really good, I've tried to put up all the links that I could remember but I'm sure I missed quite a few, because the list looks much shorter than before! I didn't remember the exact order too, but anyway, if I linked you before and it's not here now, it's because of the cut and cut fiasco. I can't remember every single link I had, my memory is going down the gutter as the days go by. Sorry about that, please email me if I accidentally left you out.

Aesthetic changes
I made the date bar grey with black text to differentiate the archives easier. The posts on the main page have a white date bar with grey text, and all individual and monthly archives shows the grey one so that it's easier to see that you're browsing the archives. I also changed the banner, so a different banner will load up if you're reading the older posts. It's nothing much, just applied the "Wind" filter twice and turned down the hue and saturation to make the banner look "older" and more uh, weathered. That and the grey archives date bar would give a better visual cue that you're looking at the archives instead of the new posts.

That's basically it. Tell me what you think of the changes, I'll love to hear some input regarding the new features. I think the sticky posts makes the sidebar a bit too cluttered and long, perhaps I should be more discriminatory in marking a post "sticky". I already tried to squash the list by using a small font size and minimal spacing in the CSS class definition but it's still fairly long. Anyway, I'll appreciate any feedback regarding the changes. :) Thanks!

I've recently joined the team of writers at The Weblog Review [theweblogreview.com]. Interesting tidbit: I got a 2.5/5 when my site was reviewed [theweblogreview.com] on 20/10/2002. Just did my first review yesterday, and it's been accepted and posted so I can re-post it here:

Original review for The Weblog Review here: StayPuff [theweblogreview.com].

StayPuff

The first thing that I noticed about StayPuff.net is that it's not merely a weblog. The weblog is the main focus of the site, but there are several other sections (including an intriguingly named "Experiments" section) in addition the weblog. I was expecting those sections to be external links, but clicking on them shows that they're internal content created by David, the owner of the site.

There are actually 5 authors (including David) listed on the side, but 3 of the others have blogs of their own, and David seems to be the only active writer. Browsing through the archives shows that the other authors average about a post a month. However, David more than makes up for the lack of the other authors posts with his frequent posts. The other authors also frequently make comments on David's blog and vice versa.

The writing style of David is easy to read and he has a sense of humour that translates well into text. The posts are varied and can be anything from news events to David's personal life. The posts feels easy to read because of his writing style and that is not something that many people can do. I genuinely felt compelled to read more due to the way David structures his entries.

Unfortunately, I could only read up to June 2002, even though the weblog has been online since May 2001. It appears that David made the transition to Greymatter on the 22nd of June and clicking on all entries before that resulted in a "404 - File not found" error. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the archives up to June, and it's nice to see that the writing style and humour carries back to the beginning.

The first other thing I clicked on was the Experiments link, and the title does not disappoint. Inside that section, David describes the internet experiments which he has conducted. I particularly enjoyed reading the "Chatting up a chic via e-mail" one, where he posted a tantalizing profile at an online dating site and compiles the list of replies that he received. These experiments give the readers a voyeuristic enjoyment in reading the replies. I was also impressed by David's sense of responsibility, in that he did not post the results of the second experiment, which is about a dubious issue (read it on the site).

There is also an Articles section, which is a list of articles David and his friends has written over the years. These includes pieces as varied as "A few pointers to seduce women" to a multi-part road trip to Albany write-up, which was the first clue that David is an Australian (I missed the Aussie Blogs webring link at the bottom of the main page).

There is also a section called David's People (D.People). It seems to work like a agony aunt article in that David replies to readers who write in about various personal problems. Some of them are funny and some of them are genuinely helpful, but all of them are interesting to read. The other sections are the guestbook, links, results of the monthly polls and a gallery - which wasn't the personal picture gallery I expected but screenshots of David's "The Sims" (a computer game) families.

Regarding the design of the site, I found the clean approach and black background to be easy on the eyes. I also liked the way the red, blue and yellow bars seem to have an effect of guiding the eyes down. That hypnotising effect is probably why I spent so much time reading the main site. :) However, there is a design decision which I found strange. The archives of the blog open up in another window and the formatting of the main site does not carry over into the archives. I have no problems with this though, since the basic white archive template is easy to read, but it does detract from the "integrated" feel of the site. Also, this is nitpicking, but the Main link on the top navigation bar pops up a new window instead of simply loading it in the current one. I'm not sure if this is a conscious decision, but I found this to be distracting as I have to close the new window.

In conclusion, I like the site and I feel that it really deserves a 4.5, but the inaccessible pre June 2002 archives and minor design issues made me reduce the score to a 4 in compliance with the rating guidelines. I really recommend that everyone visits this site, as it's worthy of that at least, to establish if you like this site enough to read it regularly. Personally, I've already bookmarked the site and will continue to read it daily.

This site was reviewed on 2003-05-12 by sixthseal.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
sixthseal felt that StayPuff deserved a rating of 4.0

Link to site: StayPuff [staypuff.net].

The site owner's reply:

Weblog Review

I got this glowing review courtesy of The Weblog Review. I used to actually be a reviewer on TWR about a year ago and did about 15-odd reviews before deciding I just didn't have the time to write such in-depth reviews. StayPuff's review was amazingly detailed and I'm pleased the reviewer (which I see was his first review) spent a good quantity of time looking through the site and gave, what I thought, a very fair and accurate picture of what we're all about here.

I urge you to have a read.

PS - The review also gave some very good feedback which I have taken onboard. I've fixed the new open window when you click 'Home' on the top menu, and will fix the archives before June 2002 very soon (damn, they used to work!). I'll also add the review to the Articles section.

Posted: 12:00 PM WAST

Original post here [staypuff.net].

Changes: The Articles link of the original StayPuff.net post has been changed to open up in a new window.

Getting methamphetamine in a baggie is...interesting. :) Not to bag (no pun intended) on my contact, he's a nice guy, but getting powder in plastic baggies presents a logistical challenge - how to get all of the powder out. The properties of powder makes it stick to the side of plastic, so even after I transfer everything into aluminium foil, there's still remnants of powder sticking to the sides. Unless you're planning to inject (which I'm not - I only insufflate meth) there isn't any easy and hygienic way to get the remnants out that I know of. If you're wondering, I flooded the baggie with a bit of water, alkalized my stomach and swallowed the water + remnants of meth. Yeah, I know, I know, that's disgusting, I don't know where that baggie has been etc etc. ;) The risk of doing that isn't really much though, worst I can get is a stomach ache. My philosophy is - waste not, want not. Does anyone have any ideas about how to get powder out of a baggie without the water method? I'll love to know, and my stomach thanks you in advance. =D

P/S - This post describes events in the past and all of the substance in question has already been consumed. I am no longer in possession of any illegal substances!

This is psilocybe subaeruginosa - a species of psychoactive mushroom that only grows in Australia. I'm glad to have the chance to experience this particular strain of magic mushroom coz it doesn't seem to grow in Malaysia. I read that the dosage of fresh psilocybe subaeruginosa is much higher than the few small ones we found that day so I didn't eat those. However, I have 1.5 grams of dried psilocybe subaeruginosa courtesy of chemist tip's (not his real name) generosity.

Substance: Psilocybe subaeruginosa (dried)
Dosage: 1.5 grams

I'm consuming the magic mushrooms on an empty stomach (last meal - 20 hours ago). The mushrooms are all caps, without the stems. I chewed it up real good and held it in my mouth for about 10 minutes. I was warned that it tastes really bad so I should powder it up or something. It doesn't taste bad at all! On the contrary, it tastes rather delicious! The taste is fragrant and aromatic, it reminded me of shitake mushrooms. It tastes like dried shitake mushrooms too. I didn't have any problems consuming it as is, I liked it actually. Great taste and texture! :)

Trip Log:

felt about 30 minutes later
shadows say a lot about things
in darkness, shadows are amazing. they really do say a lot.
some are spooky, some are nice
visual disturbance = mostly shadows and color inverting (slight)
like suddenly a red thing on a yellow background will become a yellow thing on a red background. it lasts for a while and then stops and the starts. goes away when focused hard. only happens in bright light

i find myself attracted to simple things, like a bug flying about, for half a sec, i seriously considered that it's dancing to the music i'm listening to. :) it flies around based on the beat of the music

later:
t+45
mild "darkness" not refering to light here
heightened sensitivity to everything - cold, hunger, pain and aches etc
thought process difinately altered
also more body load
quite high or either i'm imagining it, part of psychedelic experience
prob the latter
weakness in legs, heavynes in head, muscle sore eveywhere
feelsl ike my whole body is sore :) but thats a frequent feeling i have, mostly after long tweak sessions, just came off one, prob not related to shroom

"breathing" hallucinations like lsd
:)
visual distortion like things are breathing
hahaha!
oh fuck i lauged out loud as i saw a cev
now i can't stop laughing
heheheh
the cev i saw was the pattern of a cupboard - the wood pattern morphing,
its very fucking amazing !!!! the visual effect is very consistant, and its ALWAYS THERE. doesn't go away if you look away.
nice
it looks like the wood patterns is flowing, like a waterfall, from the top down. and then up again...no, no ups, its all flowing down, just looked like it was up at a point, like when you look at wawterfalls. very consistant and amazing...open eyed visuals, looks like the wood is constantly morphing and flowing.
only that cupboard behaves that way, i suspect its coz of the pattern, it makes the visuals very nice. other objects don't display this level of visual distortion
alll the wood distortions happened in bright light

amazing closed eyed visuals geometric pattern
thought process altered like lsd, dunno how to descibe this er.. you're thinking differently when compared to normal reality

veryy visual too, notice the various visual distortions- morphing, breathing etc just to name a few

it feels like lsd
very visual though

i keep getting confused about whether i'm keeping this for myself or for posting
i don't kno
w if that makes sense
it doesn't to me :)

promotes laughter :)
hehehe
like marijuana in that sense

trip ended at 3 hour point (at least most of the effects went away) so i smoked mj and had some beer + food

The most impressive visual of that night was this:

Original:

Simulated:

This doesn't do it justice though, the effect is continuous, and the pixilation was smoother and the effect is "transparent", not like this blending representation. My Photoshop skills are not sufficient to do an artist's depiction of the visual. Sorry. :) But it was a great visual, the best of the night.

Note: Neither I nor CT possess any mushrooms (fresh, dried or otherwise). This post describes events that have already happened and thus is in the past.

My exam timetable doesn't look too good. I'll only finish on the 24th, I prefer to have them all crammed together instead of spaced out like this. I haven't been updating much lately, sorry about that. Assignments...

Link of the day: Seized criminal assets 'lost' [theage.com.au]

You know, drugs seem to have legs and a mind of its own...I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow found their way back into the market. ;)

Amanita muscaria var muscaria (Fly Agaric)

I went for a walk with chemist tip (not his real name) today and found two species of magic mushrooms! :) The first one isn't really considered a "magic mushroom" even though it's psychoactive - Amanita muscaria!

Amanita muscaria - mature

Unlike magic mushrooms, which usually refers to the ones containing psilocybin, amanita muscaria (also called Fly Agaric) contains muscimol as the psychoactive chemical.

The amanita muscaria we found was growing in singles over a small patch of grass under pine trees.

Amanita muscaria needs to be prepared before eating though. Read more about it here [erowid.org]. There are a lot of bad reports about this particular mushroom, but I'm really keen to try it since I haven't had amanitas before.

I've saw somewhere that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland after his experiences with amanita muscaria.

CT found this - a peeled amanita muscaria cap. Looks like someone has been here before. :)

There were heaps of them too, but most are quite old. CT mentions that they grow at the same place every year because of the symbiotic relationship they have with the trees.

Psilocybe subaeruginosa

The second psychoactive mushroom we found - Psilocybe subaeruginosa. I've read that this species only grow in Australia and it's common in Victoria (Melbourne).

Another one at a different spot

These are the ones that stain blue easily after picking. It was growing a small patch on rich woodchips and around plants. Most of them are still really small ones in the early growth stages. We only found 4 small mushrooms, but with the rainy conditions coming up, hopefully the patch with sprout with abundance! :)

CT with the mushrooms

The way that the mushrooms bruise blue when it's picked is interesting. The side of the cap is also stained blue. That makes it easy to distinguish this species from other mushrooms. Oh, and I found a small slug under ones of the caps. :)

I let it crawl on my hand

Trip report coming up really soon. ;)

Mushroom Hunting I is here [sixthseal.com].

Mushroom Hunting II is here [sixthseal.com].

Black and blue (and orange)

I went to chemist tip's place just now and we interrupted his girlfriend's viewing of Die Hard (the movie) to test a couple of substances. The first test subject is a white MX pill that's going around Melbourne lately, word is the pills are good quality MDMA. The second test subject is the white powder that's sold as ice.

Substance #1: White MX (pill)

MX pill front - taken on plate

This pill has "mx" imprinted in stylized font on the front. The logo reminded me of the free newspaper with the same name [mxnet.com.au] that's distributed around Melbourne, except the "x" on the pill is in cursive font. The pill is white with colored speckles, very slightly beveled edges and a single score down the back.

MX pill back - taken on table

Marquis

The pill was scraped with a razor and two drops of Marquis reagent was applied to it. The result was an INSTANT color change to black. I was surprised by the swiftness of the reaction, it went purple to black as soon as the Marquis solution came into contact with the pill scraping. My apologies for the out of focus reaction photos. The digicam doesn't like to focus on liquids.

Test result: Purple/black instantly. MDxA (MDMA and MDA (rare) are the only ones that's common).

Simon's

One drop of Simon's reagent and two drops of buffer solution is applied to another sample of the pill scraping. Instant color change to blue indicating a secondary amine (ruling out MDA). MDMA is a secondary amine while MDA is a primary amine.

Test result: Swift reaction to blue. MDMA.

Substance #2: Ice (powder)

A$250 per gram

Methamphetamine or 4-MAR? Will 4-MAR (4-methyl-5-phenyl-2-amino-oxazoline) test positive as a secondary amine?

Marquis

The powder turned bright orange almost instantly. It kicked the dexamphetamine reaction's ass in terms of response time. :)

Test result: Instant bright orange. Meth(amphetamine). Will 4-MAR react with Marquis? It's not documented.

Simon's

The reaction was fast again, straight to blue.

Test result: Instant blue, indicating a secondary amine. Methamphetamine.

Robadope

Tested it with Robadope for fun. It has a strange reaction - turned grainy black. It's probably nothing though, this test was not conducted properly. :) I'm sure that it's methamphetamine anyway.

Test result: Grainy black (doesn't mean anything - this test not done properly)

Tell you all a funny thing from last nite. Well, funny to me anyway. :p It was crashdown day and I had plenty of B&C's (benzos, beer, cannabis) and got some food into me after my tweak session. Apparently the amount of clonazepam I consumed was too much, because 45 minutes later, realization dawned upon me that I've sedated myself silly. :) I was eating a McChicken burger when suddenly I thought "Hmm...I'm feeling something soggy in my right hand. Iwonder what that is". I looked down and went "Oh!" - realized I was holding the half eaten burger in my hand. Okay, I took a bite and after a second (while chewing somemore!) I thought "Hmm...I'm feeling something soggy in my right hand. I wonder what that is" AGAIN. This went on for quite a while, until I was too sleepy to continue eating and stuffed the rest into my mouth and went to sleep.

Grabbed a chicken schiznal (sp?) burger with bacon and cheese from the campus center main cafe while walking back from my tutorials. It's surprisingly good. Salty. :)

You've got mail!

EZ Test [eztest.com]. It's a set of chemical solutions for testing substances. The reagents produce different reactions to different chemicals so you can test for Ecstasy (MDMA), methamphetamine, 2C-B, DXM etc. It's very useful to have around for testing pills, although personally I've never had any problems about this in Australia. MDMA pills are sold as MDMA pills and ketamine/speed pills are sold as such. It is useful to verify the contents of a pill though, so I usually use a Marquis reagent which I get at Off Ya Tree, a local headshop.

Inside the package is the EZ Test container and a booklet

That ran out some time ago and I found out that EZ Test has a Australian distributor [ez-test.com.au] which mails their substance testing kits cash on delivery, so I ordered a set from them. This is the EZ Test Xtreme, which has 4 different chemicals - the EZ Test (Marquis reagent), Simon's reagent, Robadope and the buffer solution. The Marquis reagent is probably the most well known for testing Ecstasy pills, but the other reagents compliment the Marquis solution to provide more comprehensive results. Hmm...I feel like I'm writing this for a report! :)

The EZ Test container - a closer look

Anyway, the Marquis reagent is able to detect MDxA type substances (eg MDMA, MDA, MDEA), amphetamines (speed), 2C-B (also called Nexus, pretty rare chemical), and DXM.

A peek inside the container

Simons's reagent is used to test for a "secondary amine", which to my limited chemistry knowledge means the substances that have a longer chemical name than usual. ;) These are things like methamphetamine (a methyl group added to -amphetamine), MDMA and so on. This one is good for testing meth, it won't react with amphetamines (primary amine), only with methamphetamines (secondary amine). Anyway, there isn't a burning need to have this around either, since most of the 'speed' sold in Australia is methamphetamine, or so I've heard. It's not that hard to subjectively differentiate meth and speed (I use speed to refer to amphetamine) when consumed anyway.

The 4 bottles of reagents

Robadope on the other hand does the opposite of what Simon's reagent does. Robadope is used to detect the presence of a primary amine (like amphetamine). Unfortunately, this test requires quite a lot of the substance to work. The instructions say at least 1/8th of a pill is needed to produce a reaction. That's quite wasteful, but it's interesting to have around, if only to test things at random. =D

EZ Test (Marquis reagent)

There is also the buffer solution, which I think (don't quote me on this) is used to speed up the reaction times. Either that, or it's the "missing link" that's needed for Simon's and Robadope to react, perhaps the solutions are not that stable and won't keep as long when combined. Again, I don't really know what the buffer is for, just that it's used with Simon's and Robadope but not Marquis.

Simon's reagent

The tests are done in sequence and by inference and extrapolation (just love this phrase), you can detect whether a pill/powder/capsule/whatever contains MDxA (MDMA, MDEA, MDA), methamphetamine, amphetamine, PMA, 2C-B, DXM, combinations (primary amine - secondary amine like a MDMA/amphetamine combo pill) and even heroin. Each reagent changes color when it's exposed to the recreational substances that it's able to detect.

Robadope

I don't know why I'm in a mood for writing something like this, but anyway. :) Here's an example, using the EZ Test kit on a dexamphetamine tablet. I had 2 pills left, which isn't enough to do anything, so I've left it lying around...until today! Today, I'm going to strike the fear of God into the little white pills. Or something. I'm tweaking again, verbal diarrhea and mindless chatter ahoy! =D

Buffer solution

Anyway, if you've read my posts, you'll know that I have a dexamphetamine script for my...ah, narcolepsy. ;) I can't stop with the wink wink nudge nudge every time I mention this, my apologies, I'm actually privately gloating about my script. Heh. Okay, enough silliness, sorry about that.

5 mg dexamphetamine tablets

Back on topic, dexamphetamine is a primary amine, from what I've read, amphetamine is a racemic mixture containing both the + and - isomers. Those are dextro and laevo and Collin's English Dictionary defines it as such:

racemic
adjective
(Chem) of, concerned with, or being a mixture of dextrorotatory and laevorotatory isomers in such proportions that the mixture has no optical activity
[ETYMOLOGY: 19th Century: from RACEME (as in racemic acid) + -IC]
racemism
noun

Anyway, the laevo (or levo) isomers of both amphetamine and methamphetamine isn't recreational compared to the dextro isomers. I don't know if this is true for all -amphetamines, but its true for (meth)amphetamine. The stuff you get off the street is a racemic mixture, so looking from a recreational perspective, it's inferior to dextro only isomers. In other words, pure dextro (meth)amphetamines will get you higher than a racemic mixture. Personally, I like dexamphetamine (dextroamphetamine sulfate) because it's much more stimulating that street speed (racemic amphetamine), but I'll take racemic methamphetamine over it any day! =D

Dextroamphetamine sulfate - our test subject

I digress. I suspect I'm boring half of you with the background information and insulting half of you by elaborating on things that you already know. Nevertheless, I shall continue. :) Oh, and you might have noticed that I don't use the word "drug" or "drugs". I dislike that term because of the negative connotations that's associated with it. I use the term "substances" and "chemicals" instead to refer to recreational compounds. Okay, instead of digressing again and again and being self indulgent, I'll continue to the tests.

Substance: 5 mg dexamphetamine pill (dextroamphetamine sulfate)

Dexamphetamine pill, crushed into powder

The pill is crushed up with a dog tag as if to prepare for insufflating (snorting). Half of the powder is used for the tests and the other half was, er...insufflated. The first test is done using the Marquis reagent. A small portion of the powder is isolated into a corner of a CD jewel case and two drops of the Marquis reagent is applied to it.

Test: Marquis Reagent

The pill's content is already known, so this is just a test for fun and to show how reagents work. The Marquis reagent will react by changing color to orange/brown when it detects amphetamine (speed). Let's see how it goes in the test.

Yellow as soon as it came into contact with the powdered dexamphetamine pill.

The color started to look orange after a couple of seconds.

It's noticeably orange now.

Yup, unmistakably orange. Indicates the presence of amphetamine (dexamphetamine = amphetamine).

The reaction settled to become a brown goo after a minute.

Marquis Reagent result: Orange, indicating either methamphetamine or amphetamine.

Test: Simon's Reagent

Two drops of Simon's reagent and 4 drops of the buffer solution is applied to another portion of the powdered dexamphetamine pill. This should turn blue if there is a secondary anime (methamphetamine) but it won't react if it's amphetamine (primary amine).

No reaction. The red drops are the reagents, accidentally dropped it outside the sample.

Simon's Reagent result: No reaction, ruling out methamphetamine. This indicates that it's amphetamine, from the positive result from the previous Marquis test.

Test: Robadope

There's actually no point in doing the Robadope, since the substance is already known from the two tests. Robadope is mainly used for testing for combinations eg MDMA/amphetamine combo pill. The Robadope will proceed nevertheless. :) The reaction will be reddish/purple if it detects a primary amine (like dexamphetamine).

I fudged up the first test by dropping too much Robadope on too little sample.

Slight salmon color.

The second attempt uses only a single drop of Robadope + 2 drops of buffer on quite a large sample.

Slight reddish tint. It is noticeable to the naked eye (if you squint really hard), but the colors translated poorly to the digicam. It wasn't the shade of red I expected, but that's probably because the sample was mostly binders + fillers instead of dexamphetamine. There's heaps of binders in a dex pill, which is why snorting is such a chore that I just eat them after heavy urinary alkalization.

Robadope result: Salmon red tint. This indicates a primary amine - dextroamphetamine.

This is how Ecstasy pill testers work - by cross-referencing reagent results. :)

Strung Out - Ultimate Devotion [sixthseal.com]
(right click, save target as)
[160 KBPS STEREO 44.1KHZ 2.46 MB .mp3]

[Edit: MP3 removed - bandwidth issues]

101.1 Fahrenheit
to some it's a fever, to her it's just right
and I can't hold her
and it's bringing me down
her blood runs hot but her heart beats cold
she's a devil with an angel's face I've been told
I think I'll push my luck next time around
I'd walk through fire for you
I'd burn in hell to make it all true
but I never loved anyone else in this world but you
a thousand reasons why I try
to prove to you I'm not the other guy
I don't give a damn what other people think
a flair for the strange and a temper like a whip
a soft hand clutches a riding crop grip
the smell of latex rubber - it drives me insane
beat him once then send him on his way
there's no room in your life for anyone to stay
engrave your moniker in welts of pain
there's nothing I wouldn't do to prove
to make these words I promised true
I'd rather live my life alone than without you
you know I'd rather die then to fuck this up
wouldn't get another try
got one chance there's nothing I wouldn't do
you be my master I'll be your servant
on my knees I beg to be abused
you can take the skin right off my back
with a riding crop or a leather strap
I'd take it all just to be with you

Our halls just installed a couple of new microwaves today. It's shiny and the time setting mechanism is a dial instead of a push button. The faster you turn the dial the faster the time goes (for heating up your stuff)> I was like wah...

I'm hungry and this meat display (taken in Springvale) is making me drool. If you squint a little, you can even see the people working inside. Oh well, I'll eat after I finish this bit of my assignment. Check out the trailer of Better Luck Tomorrow (on the main page of the link below), it sounds like a really good movie.

Link: Better Luck Tomorrow [betterlucktomorrow.com]

I've been busy with assignments these few days (weeks?). Sleep deprivation is fun. Watching the toilet bowl water do some fancy fragment vector graphic effect before when you're about to take a piss is interesting indeed. Anyway, I still have some more assignments due so here's my (short) day in pictures:

Went to Caulfield to print and hand in one of my assignments. I saw this at the MONSU desk while binding the assignment:

An assortment of free AA batteries in a box saying "Free batteries". Generics mostly, but there's some Sony and Toshiba alkaline ones in there too. Went to Coles after that to stock up on groceries. Of course, when I say 'groceries', I really mean non essential food items. =D

Tim Tams are going for A$1.98 (usually A$2.57). The new batch has this promotion going on:

There's a ticket inside with a nifty layer which you rub to reveal what's underneath. After a while, the dark layer forms again and hides the underlying text. It's like those novelty lighters with a dark coating obscuring a model's naughty bits until you apply heat to it. Did I win?

Nope. It says "Second chance draw". I can't get a good picture coz the layer reforms really quickly.