3.5 years of vapourous work condensed into a 1 meg drop of pdf.

Thesis pdf. I think Chapter 5 would be the most interesting for people who don't give a crap about guidance and navigation theory, it's about using biological inspiration for designing robotics.

If you find any mistakes, keep 'em to yourself, cuz I don't wanna hear it!

Also, due to some visa/work-permit holdups, my stay in London might be extended a bit. Stay tuned for more updates as they come to hand.

Sweet percival jebus

UPDATE: If you want to see what I'll be working on in Sweden, read this. Anton Shiriaev will be my boss.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A giant squid has been caught on film for the first time ever, a couple of stills here and on a similar note, these are way cool: an octopus attacking a shark in an aquarium and incredible octopus camouflage

Had the last in a series of chinese lunches at kingford today, a series that goes back to the days of KC, Halliday, Griff, Wai Keet and I were hanging around campus.

Griff and I were the only attendees from those days, but we were joined by Natalia, Marcus, Magda, Teddy, Chai and Guro.

Guro promised me a welcoming committee in Norway consisting of a troupe of pink dancing girls. I thought she was kidding. Big mistake to make.

I mean, I know Scandinavians are insane... but could there really exist entire nations inhabited with them??? Seems like something out of a fairy tale.

Mat and B-Roq, you should be able to find Guro in the first pic, not sure where she is in the others.

That dang sure stank lit, sank passed the pit for more hardcore prank spit

UPDATE: Erg, the swedish consulate has yet to receive my passport, with work visa, back from sweden. Methinks actually leaving Australia in a few days will be heavily dependent on actually having a passport!

Thesis is finally submitted. Hoorah!
I'm glad I allowed a month buffer zone to fill up with miscellaneous administration distractions, because I sure needed it!
A PDF will be online soon for anyone who's interested.


One of mandy's pix from my party. Quite a nice one of Fro, Jas and me. (Kt, the guy in the middle is engaged to Sarah Lee). Looking forward to seeing the rest!

School people: if you're wondering why there are no photos of you, it's because you were lame-arses in the costume department!

Mayhem, moving is a pain.

Chia, be careful pushing roots deep in the ground, even apparently shallow roots are an arseload of work to pull up. Took all weekend to move out of the bra. Now I'm back at Turramurra, enduring the three hour return trip to uni for one more week, as I did for four years through undergrad. North shore folk are the human equivalents of balloon animals: Brought into the world by clowns, colourful and entertaining, hollow plastic shells full of air, any sane man has an uncontrollable urge to pop them: BANG!

Although I do like the bushlandiness, and abundance of lorikeets, like this guy who joined me for breakfast this morning:


Howsabout the colour balance on that one?

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination

That's apparently a John Lennon quote. I'm surprised I've lived this long without previously hearing it, but here we are. (If I've died between me writing this and you reading it, that last comment might need revision, but hopefully that situation is sufficiently unlikely to be negligible for all intents and purposes.)

Not much happening. Finally got all the paperwork today, so actual thesis submission will be Thurs or Friday. Spent about five hours cleaning apartment so far, and there's still more to do. I returned the flag to the ladies at the Swedish consulate today, and showed them some of the party photos. They were very impressed with all the costumes, so well done kids!

Still waiting on Mandy for more party pix. Various party events have been drifting back into conscious memory, and have left me wondering whether they were photographed. Including:

• A dance off between me and Tori to the tune of the venga boys (Tori's the yellow abba girl for those ignorant of the socialite scene). Gabe was the adjudicator, and I won with some fancy footwork.
  

• A nipple off between Paul and Gus, which Paul won of course. A nipple off is a contest to see who has the smallest nipples, done in a wild-west duel situation: face off, quick-draw rip the shirt up, expose the nips. This is not the first time these two have competed. I don't know why they do it, it always ends in tears.
  

• I remember ballroom dancing with another guy. But I can't remember who it was.
  

• Dajennyjen (holy calamity scream insanity) was mixing drinks for me to skull with mandarins in them, leaving me spitting pips back in the glass, then she gave me a can of german insect repellant. Still got no f'ing clue what that meant!

Confusion!

Anyway, while we're waiting for photographic evidence, here's another picture from last week to keep the punters happy:



Title: "Typical, now they've all gone over there."

Sweden 2005

Update: a few more pix online. Some are very compressed, better quality coming soon

party photos

So far just guros and a couple I took in the morning.

And while you're enjoying all the collourful yellow-blue costumes, I'd like to put forward my vote for "Best Attempted Costume". Dickman, first thing he says when he walks in: "Sorry I don't have a costume, meatman. I wanted to come as an orgy, but none of the girls on coogee beach were interested".

Their loss!

sweet sweet music

Two happy updates: (a) Sam's coming down for the party, (b) I'm going on the second half of the reef trip (I will be hailed as bearer of fresh fruit)

Due to popular demand, I have made available an mp3 of
the "Full House" theme song.

For those of you overseas or interstate, and unable to join my party this saturday, this should give you some idea of the amount of fun we're going to have.

Shelly Beach

UDATED UPDATE: I'm listening to a "Learn Swedish" CD, and one of the practice dialogue scenarios is "You've just won 5 million kronor in the lottery, and you are trying to figure out how to spend it". Really training us on the essentials!

UPDATE: Proving once again that to make great art in this modern era you don't need skill, only broken equipment, here's a photo from the night dive when my camera was malfunctioning. I think it turned out pretty funky! Looks like a winamp visualization or something.




Had a lovely night-dive at Shelly Beach last night. Photos are available here (the first half are by me, the second half by another keen u/w photographer, Jason)

Here's one, up close and personal with a Wobbegong Shark:














He was the cause of another of those hair-raising moments when you're swimming along, doobie-do-doobie-doobie, then realise you're a foot away from a wobbie and you just came very close to kicking him in the head.

For the uneducated: Wobbies are very well camouflaged and they usually lie on the ground doing bugger-all, but if they get angry, they can bite down hard and they don't let go, like a pit-bull terrier. They ain't small either.
See here

(Luckily enough, it seems that three D-180 strobes repeatedly pounding his retinae didn't make him angry)

Home Swede Home

I had a meeting at the Swedish consulate today about work permits and visas and stuff. Ahh, I love the accents! When they talk it makes me giggle! Oh, this is gonna be fun!

A couple of very nice Swedish ladies attended to me, one of them (who was not unattractive, must have been a fox in her day) said "You know, I met my husband when he came to Sweden to do a post-doc, so keep an eye out", then she made a clicking noise with her mouth like she was rousing a powerful stallion. There were no horses in the room, so it must have been me she meant.

Then I probed their brains for party info. They told me where to find real Swedish Aquavit (dare I go there again?) and lent me one of the consulate's official Swedish flags, which I have to give back next week. I'd better take care of it!

I also asked them where I could find Viking helmets, but the best they could suggest was $2 shops. Damnit!

Words are like the film on deep water

Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians - Homer J. Simpson

A night of champagne and games was an enjoyable way to mark my first and last (for a while) visit to Alex's new apartment. I was going to mark it, literally, with some kind of glandular activity, but Alex threatened to sue for damages.

On way, on the bus into the city, I couldn't help but overhear (cuz it was so damn loud) a depressing argument between two extremely stupid people. The kind of people that would strike up a conversation with Katie or J-Girl or Matt S. (Those examples should be sufficient for this blog's readership.)

Neanderthal Man: "What? I don't remember you going to hospital"
Neanderthal Woman: "Yeeeaah, remember when you stabbed me cos you though I stole your pills, it went into my lung and just missed my heart, ya F'ing C', that's why I was in hospital for three months"

Various other arguments about which of their friends were currently in jail, and which were in rehab.

These people were obviously quite limited mentally. The whole trip I was trying to decide if it was congenital, demanding much pity, or self-applied, demanding not so much. I think maybe a combination.

They spoke very slowly, like a baby taking its first unstable steps. It seems that their training in the rich array of communications that our language offers began with belligerent argument, and never advanced further.

"The limits of my language means the limits of my world."

To make this entry a bit more cheery, though, here's a favourite picture of two girls called Jenny. Look at that mischievous grin! Oh, dangerous, dangerous . . .

Bust them flavors!

more rap styles than Life Savors
Damage kids with suits with champagne and fake alligators

nice keith interview

You keep a deep thought, bop bought
My planet court rehearsal is a must, lust my vital
is a point to bust my inhabitants, past.. tense
ever since Presidents.. Lyndon B.
Jerry, John, George and Carter like Optimus
deep silk reflects on a starter
Megatron, REJUVENATE!


Indeed

Note: the guy in the picture is not actually Trevor Dunn. This is:

Auntie In Chan gets wicked with a stir fry.

Had dinner at the best Thai resaurant in the world last night, good ol' In Chan in Kingsford, and continued in my mad rush to photographically document the best of Sydney before I leave.

Uncle In Chan says he only knows one Thai who lives in Sweden, and he hasn't really kept in contact with him. But he said he'd teach me a few recipes before I go, so if the whole post-doc thing doesn't fly, I can open a restaurant instead!

Me with uncle and cousin In Chan:

Prince and Auntie In Chan:


Also, uni people who read this (I know you're out there), it now seems girls are coming on Dickman's bucks. Was there some behind-the-scenes head bashing that I didn't hear about?

Back in spiral, I roast humans like a gyro, New York Atlanta Africa to Cairo

Reef trip: Marco explains Newtonian gravity to Marcus, while the botchi-playing group in the background provide experimental evidence of the same.

Weeelll, sad/glad/difficult news. My dear friend Natalia has pulled out of the reef trip, which is sad, but it opens up a space for me should I want it...

Now, I'm coming back to Oz sometime in Jan/Feb/March to work on this book dealo with boss here, and Swedish boss is fine with that. But, as some of you know, there's a Pakistani wedding/himalaya hiking trip coming up in Feb, March or April, no dates confirmed yet. I was planning on doing this on my trip back to Sweden.

Can I also fit in the reef trip???
Oh, so tempting!
What a perfect way to thaw out from minus 37 degree Swedish January.
I gotta decide soon because the waiting list is overflowing.

Man!

D-Day is on the horizon

Supervisor and Dad have finished reading my draft, and found a few minor errors but otherwise given the thumbs up.

Now I've got to find out about the official crap like paperwork and binding and whatnot.

Pictures are fun, and here's two from Maroubra I took this morning while waiting for the bus.




Those crazy surfers don't know the meaning of danger!
(It's true, most of them are illiterate.)

All quiet in bloggy land today. I hope Mat's still on a wild raging bender!
Another pic:

Sea and sand. Damnit I'm gonna miss Maroubra!

Calm, peaceful, happy with a herring and an aquavit

Until a particular time of night, when they snap and reveal a certain maniac side. That was Eurovision commentator Terry Wogan's brilliant analysis of the Norwegian personality. If anyone can bring the Eurovision spirit to my party, it's you Guro. Hung out w/ Marcus and Mags a bit on Saturday after the dive, they're definitely gonna be there.

Another nugget of pure gold from Wogan (I think it was about the french act): Last time I saw legs like that they were standing in a nest.

Warning, long post follows, yots of photos.

At Mahon's pool, we didn't see any sunfish, but we had a seance to summon any sharks in the area:




And sure enough, immediately afterwards we came across a family of five or six little port jacksons, lazing in the sand:




Click here for an extra closeup of that last one, cuz its wicked

Ermine tried to dance with a baby one, but he wasn't too interested:




Update: I reckon some of these pics look better in black and white. What do you guys think??













Twas an early start and an active day on Sat, so that night I just sat at home and watched Star Wars. (Sounds pretty nerdy I guess, but hey, I'm writing a blog on the internet, so what have I got to lose?)


Sergeant: What seems to be the trouble, constable?
Constable: This man claims to be an automatic teller machine, sir.
Sergeant: Well, he appears to be out of order.

Mahon Pool

Tomorrow I'm going diving just off Mahon Pool, Maroubra, pictured above as it appeared this morning on my way to uni.

Marcus and I have been itching to do this one for a long time, but both entry and exit are off the rocks which face directly east, and thus get the full broadside force of the mighty pacific. This means the seas have to be absolutely dead calm or it's suicidal.

On the other hand, if you've got a boat, it's a piece of piss. So we're taking the kiosk out there tomorrow morning. YAY!

Update: Since new posts tend to kill comment conversations of old posts, I'll copy my replies here. (But please don't let this discourage you from adding new comments!)

Katie: sure thing! I'll forward you instructions for how I'd like my three hot chicks prepared.

Mat: The time has come for me to spread my wings and ride the trade winds, and, perchance, cause a hurricane in South America.

Another Update: They've found me an apartment in Sweden, 10 mins walk from the uni, only $150 a week!!

Here's a couple of photos:

Bedroom:



Dining Room:


Actually, those are of the Kiruna Ice Hotel. You wouldn't know it from the name, but that's a hotel made entirely from Ice in Kiruna, which is in far north Sweden, and which I intend to visit.

They really have found me an apartment, but I don't have any real pics of it yet.