Hoe hoe hoe!

Man the xmas spirit is truly amazing out here. Maybe its the weather, or rather less than American sense of decorating. I never really decorated much or any for xmas anyways. Well, I was in the research lab today, and my professor/advisor rocks in and asks if I want to come over for dinner. On Christmas Eve... SURE! So I go home with him. He and his wife made an incredible dinner, and we had some pastry's and tea and juice. They opened presents and lit the Christmas Tree... which I think got part of its glow that their son was bewildered by, due to the candles actually lighting-up part of the tree. A real tree with real candles and fire! So awesome. But when they were opening presents, they gave me some! They had two presents wrapped and labeled for me! Totally a surprise, thats the true spirit, a big surprise. I had no idea this was going to happen, he just invited me over today!

Earlier in the day I stopped by the Vic market and visited my friend Dave, my buckwheat dealer. He also sells grain and nuts and stuff. Well, I kinda feel like its making a drug deal 'cause I by the metric system, in other words, I but like a quarter-kilo. I love that I by based on the kilo metric-standard unit, like professional drug dealers. Well Dave hooked me up with more than I asked for and charged me so little, it was so humbling! Lots of mixed nuts, and lots of friendliness.

Even earlier this week I went to Pellegrini's Italian joint on Bourke near Spring Street. Matt is awesome. He pulls some great espresso, as I have been going to this Italian place the past few weeks, we recognize each other. Well I was doin' the ole fold-the-US-20-dollar bill trick so that the graphics on the bill look like 9-11 and collapsing twin-towers. Matt wanted the money, and he paid me AUD for my USD. And he even gave me and my friend, Vegan Dave free espresso. He then didn't even want us to pay! I was like... man that's so nice. What a holiday gift! I still paid him as a tip. So cool!

Last weekend I went to a friend's wedding. It was unitarian. I knew I was in the right place when I ended up chatting with a dude sporting an Amon Amarth T-Shirt. But the whole deal was so cool. There was no song or dance or any other wedding BS. Straight-up, to the point. Basically can be paraphrased... "Ok your married... lets party" Ok maybe not like a crazy party scene, it was a nice reception and then the offsite party/reception. I didn't go to the latter, but the reception at the unitarian place was nice! Congrats Lev!

So here is the deal. May the holidays bring everyone a smile. Lets forget about brain washing and religion, and just recognize the love we have inside for one another. Strip-away the social corruption, we are simply animals. We can love or hate. Love is fun, its better to smile than be pissed. We are all playing this game. Either we can make life sucky by creating enemies, or simply love each other and laugh. Love is easier.

-Matt

Samhain or Beltaine, LUV, the Clause Invades, and Some Clothes Lines

Wow, so it's already November down here. I guess its the same up there :-) Spring is starting, though, down here. Anyways. So since the pagan calendar is based on a lunar cycle, and probably some what of a seasonal one as well (seasons and the lunar cycle do operate together), I suppose we just passed Beltaine. This typically would have been Samhain in the northern hemisphere. No matter what though, Los Dios de Los Meurtos also occurred. I always liked that concept of holiday. Celebrate the dead, so cool. When I die, celebrate my death. Throw a party, donate me to science, and then burn me to teeny tiny bits and stuff me into some unsuspecting persons Bar-b-cue. Or do what the vikings did, toss me on a boat and set it a blaze.

Went to World Vegan Day LAST Sunday, the 31st. Mega huge turn out at the way cool Abbortsford Convent. Had a blast! Dave and myself rocked it.

I gave a presentation for the Linux User's of Victoria (LUV) back last week on the 3rd of November, with the topic about basic kernel module development and debugging. I called it "Kernel Autopsy a Brief Evisceration Into GNU/Linux Kernel Module Creation and Debugging". The slides (and other useful stuff) can be found here. The date would have been on that previous Tuesday, but the Melbourne Cup was rocking then, a public holiday. I am against horse racing, to me it is totally unfair to the horses. Plus, it seems like a really bad excuse to dress up and blah blhlhlahlah. Give the horses some respect, they didn't choose to be ridden.

Went to a mate's house yesterday for a BBQ. Paul and his wife Liz made delicious vegan tart desert stuff and had plenty of veggies and all kinds of salads. Tons of fun! But before this, I went down into the CBD. Santa Clauses' Arrival!!!! Let the consumer whoreism begin! I can hear the ring-a-ding-ding of Consumer Clause "Buy buy buy!!! Your kids expect it, and you will be bad parents if you don't give in." I must now make mention to Rev. Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping hilarious! Oh yeah, even though it is during the summer, I'm pretty sure like many christmas cards and stuff have the "winter" snow-like decorations.

But prior to the Clause, I hung my clothes up on a clothes line to dry. Never have done that before! Awesome.... it really works! I didn't go downtown for the clause event, I happened to be on my into the city at the time.

Ok the colon speaks, and the toilet needs to be fed.

-Matt

Ostara (Spring Solstice) has Occurred

Ok well the Southern Hemisphere's spring solstice was earlier this week, officially marking the beingging of spring. Outside looked rather welcoming last afternoon, so I decided to go for a stroll and take pics. Mainly I wanted a pic of "mattt" Apparantly there is one that exists. I had been planning on taking a shot of this for sometime now. I know WallyBert will get a kick out-of-it.

Friday night I met up with some of the Ruxcon peeps. Had fun hangin' out with them. The meeting was more of a demo on SQL-injection and remote shell/webshell execution. Louie did a great job with the talk. Afterwards, I went to Lord of The Fries (veggie and vegan friendly fast food joint) and then met back-up with the hackers at a cafe/bar. And last night I went to the Vegie Bar with my boy Dave, and we met a few others there. One dude was in town all the way from Alice Springs, so that was kinda the reason Dave setup the meeting. Great food and good times. We went out for coffee later!

Enjoy some pics.


-Matt

!Hostel

Sooooo. The place I was drooling over when I first hopped down here. A place in the artsy-hip Fitzroy area, called me back! They needed someone to take over rent, and well I was tossing between hostel, the vegans (Fiona and Dave), and the Fitzroy place. Well since I love the vegans, and we have been trying to look for places to start, and not yet successful, I decided to accept the Fitzroy place... until me and the vegans find a house. I must say, I have been in contact with the vegans since I first arrived and even before I arrived. So, in a since, I guess this Fitzroy place is temporary. I have two rooms here, well I should have two, there is one person that is moving out, Louie. Louie is mega-cool. My other housemates, are Heath, Zoe, and Paula. All way cool! I love these people so far. My current room here is 'ok' It has a queen bed hovering on a small frame just over the floor. I dig the house, but as common in Australia, especially with way-old Victorian-styled places, it lacks heat. Which probably isn't too bad in the Summer, but now, the winter... it's pretty cool and drafty. My main quibble is the heat. Zoe did hook me up with a small portable heater. Which is 'ok' and downstairs has a oil-heater (which is pretty much cut it on when you need to). But hey, what can I say. I just wanted to find some neat people, in a neat area, and have my own room ... check, check, check! I do need a desk and chair. But that will need to wait until Louie's room becomes available.

I met up with the vegans today to look at a house. Mega-cool house, however one of the bedrooms leads directly to the bathroom, or you have to go outside to get to the bathroom. So thats probably a no-go. We all hung out at a mega-vegan friendly Vietnamese restaurant Yong Green Food, I did not partake in the foodativities, but did hangout with muh friend. We then ventured to Coles to get some grocery action on.

Anyways, that was my early afternoon. I just had some coffee with Heath in the new place here, and am planning on some vegan-friendly pizza at my friend, Paul, one of the post-grads, place. His wife is making soy-cheese pizza. So considerate!

Hah, and for all those picture-grubbing monsters. My room... yeah it doesn't look as cool as how Louie has his decorated... but hey, I arrived by taxi around 8:00 PM last night. All I wanted was some community, not that the hostel was bad.  In fact, it was a blast as I made tons of friends.  The last day there I met a guy who knew, from Vietnam, Jim Webb the VA Senator.  But I want to get established out here, and get a place where I can get things done.  Maybe things will start to smooth out :-) Also, various sizes of these pictures can be skimmed from my Picassa album or my Flickr album.

My bedroom.

The place (center house). The last picture, the mailslot, is posted on http://www.flickr.com/matt-davis



Heath and Louie.


-Matt