This month, Israel goes absolutely bat-shit murderous crazy raising international concerns about oil prices, Syd Barrett dies, North Korea fires a bunch of missiles as the world holds its breath (consequently Japan decides they are probably friendly enough to have a standing army again) - fortunately oil prices are not affected - and Paul Cechner announces that he will soon migrate for time unknown, to destination known.

I realise that I have made no official announcement anywhere, sent no spam email and notified no newspapers - August the 11th marks my last day in Australia for the foreseeable future[1].

I have outlined my itinerary in great detail thusly. Perth->Sydney on August the 8th, Sydney->Tokyo on the 11th, then Tokyo->London on the 25th.

One pictures a massive benefit concert, an undulating crowd of friends riding the wave of a going away-rave, culminating in a crescendo where our enigmatic host disappears after some stunning yet brief announcement, never to be seen again. Guests would still have a good time after he left, but probably not as good a time. Of course this scenario is precluded by a lack of willing participants and a well-known lack of organisational ability.

So I find myself with three remaining precious weeks, busily divesting myself of my worldly possessions. Some know of my convenient automobile disaster - an unexpectedly serendipitous moment that solved a bunch of problems at once, providing both a $4,700 windfall and a sudden dependency on my car-wielding friends. A poorly organised tax portfolio ensures a hefty return on unnecessarily paid HECS contributions (for more information please refer to this dissertation on my modus operandi.)

Other than the car, I have a bed, computer and computer desk. These aren't going to be a problem.

I am freaky excited about every part of my coming trip. If leaving the country is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Footnotes
[1] From the Paul dictionary:
The Foreseeable Future(n) - not necessarily a long time, given Paul's inability to foresee more than a matter of minutes into the future.

Totally unrelated to anything at all, and not that it bares on my mind at all, but Scroop and I are gonna need a consensus on this (we've had a few wines.)

Question 1: Is the bracket for mid twenties considered to be 24-26 or is it 23-27?

For the sake of fairness (and because Scroop thinks I'm biasing the question with my wording), I will ask this question as well:

Question 2: Is 27 considered to be mid-twenties or late-twenties?

Again, for the sake of fairness I won't say which side of this fence I'm on.

Like I said, unless we have someone else weigh in here we're gonna have to count the cat's vote, and my opinion of the cat is fairly well known.

I'd provide some sort of voting machine in this post, but I reckon anyone who can't figure out how to leave a comment doesn't deserve to have their opinion included.

I know a guy by the name of Tim Merks. Old Merksey[1] is an animator, and a damn good one at that. He works with his very talented girlfriend Rosey making more awesome animations. He has been likened to Hayao Miyazaki[2]

Anyway, he has an experimental webcomic Vicious and Faust that is also cool.

[1] I presume he likes to be called 'Merksey'
[2] by himself, when he said "I'm no Hayao Miyazaki"

Work in progress (TODO: put animated image of construction guy here)

Since early days I have said that the Internet will only be useful if it can provide me with these three things. It must allow me to:

1. easily share my emails between computers,
2. easily share my bookmarks between computers, and
3. store events, dates and notes straight from my email client

The Internet's greatest potential for me is in the ability to de-personalise a personal computer so you don't have to carry your data around. If I can log into an Internet cafe in Germany and chat to my friends, read my emails and check my calendar exactly the same as if I were at home, then the Internet has done its job for me.

I look at the points I outline above as watermarks; not so much a complete list of functionality as an indication of how useful it is for my needs.

Share emails
Web based email has been around for a while, but it wasn't till Gmail came along that it became useful. Gmail doesn't attach ads to all your emails, the interface is sweet, and of course it offers a good sized mailbox.

Plus, it integrates with Google calendar.

Share bookmarks
There's always del.icio.us, but it seems directed more towards the whole 'social networking' angle. I'm sure that it probably does what I want, plus a whole bunch more that I haven't bothered finding out, but I just haven't taken the time to look into it.

As of yesterday however, I have started using the Google Browser Sync firefox extension. This approach actually modifies your browser's bookmarks, history, passwords and all that stuff directly, instead of providing you with a web-page. No matter how simple and awesome a web page is, it can't be as useful as updating your web-browser directly.

Events, dates and notes
Google calendar is currently the best solution I've found for tracking events. It still lacks a few things - allowing you to simply click on any date in the body or subject of a Gmail email to create an event from it would be sweet - but it makes up for it in the group organisation features (shared events allow users to see each other's comments, for example.)

Kiko seems pretty feature-complete, but its a big chunk of Flash that goes slowly and is buggy. If Google calendar took a few of its contacts and mail client integration features onboard though, it would be an unstoppable force.

There is still no decent note-taking device, but I believe Google has one of these in the works as well.

I feel really uncomfortable in shilling for a company like this, by the way. It just so happens that Google provide all the pieces of the puzzle I'm after. I'll be the first to jump off the wagon when something better comes along.

Bob's latest project is a stunning exploration of the psyche of Rock God Seshna. Laid bare are Seshna's roots, his views on Rock and Bitchez and secrets to windmill success.

The interview is worth the look if you've ever aspired to rock greatness or know Seshna personally.

Bob's article, Seshna's article, and the documentary (big download).

Things I'm proud of for some reason.

I'm not sure why I should be proud of these traits, but here you have them:

1. I haven't used an alarm clock in about 6 years.
   Like so many people, I feel special because my internal body clock is minute-accurate. This doesn't make me more punctual for work though, because my internal body clock also has a well worn snooze button.
2. I don't move at all when I sleep.
   Why am I writing this? What is so braggable about not moving? I don't know, but it means I can use the second half of my bed for books and stuff (nobody else uses it these days). Also, I assume I can sleep like a vampire all night with my arms crossed over my chest if I so choose. Sometimes I wake in the morning with dead feet, because when I went to sleep they were hanging over the end of the bed. Additionally, though less interestingly, I don't snore either.
3. I have a D& D group that I chill with on Tuesdays.
   Though we don't actually play D& D. In fact, last week we went down to the video store and rented out The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Stand back ladies.
4. I think I'm quite good at programming.
   Note that I didn't say I'm a good programmer, or that I'm good at my job - good programmers make themselves do the boring stuff as well as the interesting stuff, and being good at your job involves filling in your timesheets on time and not being cynical about management.
5. I don't like taking all the credit for things, even when I probably deserve it.
   In general, I tend towards humility. Is it ironic that I write this in this list?
6. People's mums generally like me. Not just girls' mums, but friends mums. I think it's because I care.
7. I can draw better than most non-artists.
   Though not as good as real artists.
8. I've lived with lots of people.
   Over 50 after leaving high-school, at last count. Mainly because of guild house, and I got lots of anecdotes and stories from my various experiences.
9. If someone starts telling a story, stops, and goes 'oh, don't worry' I have the ability to just forget it and literally not worry about it.
   I wasn't born with this superpower - it was instilled into me by an accident with radioactive substances and a girl.
10. I used to clean up at pool.
    At uni I was half of a super pool-playing duo (with 'Seedy' Simon Anderson) that never had to buy drinks or pay for pool because we owned the table all night. Much respect, of course, was rained down on us for being consistently better at pool than drunken pub locals.
11. I don't buy heaps of useless crap.
    But when I buy something (especially food), it's generally an expensive something.
12. I suck at fishing, but love it.
    This is just something I like to brag about - I only go fishing a few times a year and I never catch anything decent, but I really love it and have an awesome fishing rod. Possibly this is what makes me so cool.
13. I love cooking
    And I know a few good recipes too. Me and food are like peas and carrots.
14. I have an almost quintissential bachelor house
    Having lived there for a year and a half, I only last week bought a mop. There is no art on the walls and no indoor plants, and most of the furniture we have came with the house. The bathroom only gets cleaned when we think a girl is coming over. My bedroom is an organic mess that only gets stronger over time. And for some reason, I am proud of being this sort of person.

Things I'm not so proud of.

I have character flaws that I'm too lazy to deal with. First off the rank is probably laziness, though I only now realise that I haven't put that in the list. And I probably wont.

1. I largely started paying attention to good movies and music because I was sick of not knowing what my best friend was talking about.
   The old Paul: 'Fincher eh? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I like his old stuff'. 'Nah, I preferred Kurasowa before he sold out'. 'Um, yeah, Lost In Translation was a masterpiece for some reason'. About 8 years ago I started wearing black skivvies and sporting a van-dyke and started sprouting sentences about movie directors rather than actors. When Mostyn's left, he took care to make sure I'd continue to feel humbled in the movie trivia department by leaving his arguably more knowledgeable little brother.
2. I tend to get belligerent when drunk.
   Well, mainly towards my friends. I have been known to get verbally abusive towards those I respect the most, though fortunately not so much with strangers. Hence my new catchism: lets go get belligerent. I've told Bob to tell me when this starts happening, and this system seems to be working out. Luckily my friends are by-and-large either quite tolerant or abusive alcoholics as well.
3. I retell stories ad nauseum.
   This is because I have a terrible memory. To make up for this, I almost always start my stories with 'have I told you about this before?' and, unlike most people, I generally don't retell it if the person says 'yes'. Why do people do that? People, don't retell stories if someone says 'yes, you have told me before.' Oh look, I turned one of my 'not-prouds' into a 'proud' - it's my list.
4. I can't grow good facial hair.
   I know there are good genes in my family, because both of my little brothers can grow good beards, but my face is a landmine of bare spots.
5. I don't keep in contact with people I don't see on a daily basis, or who don't try to contact me.
   Sadly enough, this includes family (immediate and removed) - I told my relatives in Germany, who were kind enough provide me with accommodation and free tours of Cologne, that I would definitely send them photos and call when I got home. That is where this story ends.
6. I have an iPod
   and I spend my nights weeping about my sold out soul while I listen to emo music, dimly lit in a pool of soft light cast by my iPod screen.

What a cleansing exercise. I know I'll think about other things, and I'll add them to the ends of these lists when I do.

A typical evening in my house consists of me shifting between the T.V., kitchen and my computer (in my room) while Scroop fidgets on the Internet. The ambient noise is that of Scroop's constant and insistent utterings of amazement and jocularity, and I swear he probably does it even when I'm not around. The first few months living here had me running to the technology room at every exclamation, but now it's merged with the character of the house itself to something my subconcious filters out.

Nevertheless, a couple of nights ago I found myself intreagued by the festive whooping and cheering coming from Scroop's room, and couldn't help investigating...

PAUL yells from his computer, not willing to make the investment of going to Scroop's room

Paul What are you going on about?

SCROOP, ever the performer, enjoys drawing out the expectation

Scroop Oh man! Yippee!

Paul ...

Scroop Gmail just got multiple email address management!

Paul Oh sweet!

PAUL quickly visits gmail to check out this new functionality

Scroop Yeah, isn't it!? Now I can respond to confirmation emails in gmail and can send work emails from my work address!

Paul Wow! This rocks! And they've added a delete button!

SCROOP abruptly stops dancing...

Scroop Pfft. There was a key sequence before, so it was easy enough.

Paul Hey fuck you man! You browse with your mouse - a delete button was called for.

SCROOP turns and walks back to his room

Scroop Whatever.

Our house is a constant stormfront of joyous excitement and heated arguments.

Seshna, you'll be pleased to know your guitar arrived in one piece. I know you have woken late at nights pining, and the wait is almost over - I have her, and have taken it on myself to put her through her paces.

Of course I've spent nights playing, hefting and standing in front of the mirror. I've plugged her in and strummed away many an hour. I've carefully polished the metal bridge plate so I could see the distortions the instrument of a Rock God would lend my reflection. But my concience would not allow me to let this guitar go without passing at least once through the careful rigors of a thoroughly planned stress-test Rock Gauntlet.

Enter Director Bob

The stress a full Rock Gauntlet puts on the body is not for the faint of heart. Not certain I could handle it, I enlisted the help of the Director 'Energiser Bunny' Bob[1]

You'll be pleased to know, Seshna, that the neck can withstand almost any strain you could put on it without warping permanently. Indeed, Bob here had a hernia before he managed to do serious truss-rod warping, and the neck didn't even fully separate from the body!

Of course we finished with the Hendrix Barbeque. Once again brother, flying colours. Only two strings snapped, and the face plate, while fused to the body and bubbling, did not actually drip from the guitar. This damaged my lounge room rug though, so we'll have to work out a payment plan for you (with brotherly low interest rates, never fear.)

Footnotes:
[1] I made this name up just now, though I'm certain many would vouch for him being an Energiser Bunny in many capacities.

This is an accounting of the events of Thursday the 1st Dec. I'd just come into Rome from Cologne. I am now back in Australia and jet-lagged as hell.

Dove si trova l'Internet point was the first Italian phrase I learned in Rome. Where can I find the local Internet place? I'd arrived at midday and it was now 11:30 PM, and my goal had been reduced to finding a hotel in which to put my bags.

I walked in the front door of a 2 star hotel called Hotel Charter, a tiny front entrance dwarfed by the booked-out 4 star hotel next door. The guy in the lobby was watching black-and-white porn when I came in, and helpful and polite as he was, he didn't really stop watching it.

Parla Ingles? "Yes, don't worry sir. You are looking for a room?" I said I was, and he started booking me in. Passport, 70 Euro. Dove si trova l'Internet point? Apparently down the road, to the left, then to the right.

After a prolonged explanation on how to get the vertical-coffin-like elevator working properly (you have to hold the button down to keep it moving,) I proceeded to my room, dumped my bags and headed towards the promised Internet point.

This part of Rome - the only part I'd seen so far, having wandered in a completely random direction - was more seemy than I had expected. A few ladies of negotiable virtue and sometimes debatable gender gave me askance in Italian, presumably not scared off by my stumbling gawking tourist manner. Head low, I kept walking as these folk called unintelligibly after me.

The Internet point itself was cast in the fluro blue light they use in bathrooms to stop junkies from being able to see their veins. The dude behind the counter pointed me towards a station and I jumped on the Internet like a ravenous beast. I accessed the Internet's brains out.

Bob and Teja were on, giving me some hope for the night. Where the fuck is your brother? He was supposed to send me an email telling me where we should have met up, and I've been wandering between airports, bars and Internet points for 11 hours trying to track him down!

Their attitudes were refreshing but probably not as helpful as they might have imagined: you're in Rome baby! Look around! Drink in the beauty! Have an adventure!

I doubtfully looked around. I think some of the trannies outside were packing up and searching for me. There was a toothless old codger out trying to chat up one of the less obviously female Romans. The dude behind the desk was up to his elbows in a prolonged nasal excavation. I imagined the black-and-white beauty the concierge in my hotel was resorting to. This wasn't really helping.

Nevertheless, I really relished my moment's communication with friends after what seemed like weeks of self-exile. As enriching an experience walking around a non native English speaking country is, it tends to stain your insides with a curious detachment from the world around you. I am, at heart, a very social creature.

I shot off an email to Mos and Mel telling them the name of my hotel and put on a very angry face before leaving the fluro-blue haven. This is my 'don't fuck with me' face. My 'I certainly aren't interested in sex' face. It seemed to work, until I was almost at the hotel. 'Oi,' some dude muttered - a short guy with a big shiny white smile. He jabbered some proposition at me. Sorry, Ingles. 'Oh, no pais Italiano eh? Hahahahaha. Ha.' I walked in the door and held the button for the elevator. The dude was still grinning at me through the front door as I went up.

I spent the next hour or so showering, shaving (using a dodgy blade stolen from Mostyn and no shaving cream) and reading the useful phrases section of my new tourist Rome guide. Then I pulled the pear and apple schnapps that was a parting gift from my German uncle. If ever there was a time to get a little belligerent, it was now. 'Prost,' I toasted myself in the mirror. Then I went to sleep.

45 minutes later, the phone rings. Hey. 'We're downstairs' says Mel. Sweet, things are looking fucking sweet all of a sudden. The next three days were awesome, though less interesting to write about right now.

Yes, I've returned to the waking world. Last night I came home to find Carla, Shaun, Rob and Teja still waiting for me at the airport! I was so happy to see those guys, though I think my enthusiasm may not have been obvious over the 20-something hours of sleepless flight I'd just gone through[1].

I could never repay Mostyn, Mel, Al, Lucy and Kev for their hospitality over the last five weeks.

I know things change when you're away, but I really hope the new friends I made in Europe are still waiting for me when I get back.

[1] A quick note; so far it seems my plan to minimise jetlag is working. I kept myself awake on the plane with a strict diet of alcohol and screaming children then crashed like a drunken ethnic driver when I got home. I woke at 6 this morning, and plan on staying awake till late tonight, fingers crossed.