Month completed: January 2008

Here it is - my big Lego achievement. In fact, it is my big Megabloks achievement, but that’s much of a muchness, because Megabloks is just like Lego, but looks more realistic and less like a bunch of blocks put together. It is the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow’s ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise*.

Nat gave it to me for Christmas, and I couldn’t wait to get started. Unfortunately it took only a few hours to complete and wasn’t too difficult, but what it has done (besides looking awesome) is that it has given me the appetite for more Lego and Megabloks projects.

The only problem I have is trying to find room in a one-bedroom apartment to put all of my future masterpieces!

* The painting behind the ship is one of the beach that I did a while ago. Works in well with the pirate theme I reckon (I am such a geek!).

Month completed: January 2008

On the same day as I completed goal 12 (visit the Melbourne Aquarium) Nat and I decided to knock this goal off my list as well.

And I am glad we did. The view from the Tower to all angles of Melbourne was tremendous, and we could see out as far as Mount Dandenong in the east.

For those not in the know, Melbourne’s Eureka Tower is the world’s tallest residential building, and the 88th floor (known as Skydeck 88) is the highest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere. Pretty impressive, and thus visiting it was on my list.

One of the unique features of the Eureka Tower is The Edge, a glass cube which projects 3 metres out of the building, 300 metres above the ground. Once you are out of the building, the walls, roof and floor of the cube go from white to transparent. It was weird looking down, and seeing nothing but the ground 300 metres away. Not exactly scary, but definitely worth doing if you are up in the Skydeck anyway.

I was most impressed with the 30 viewfinders scattered around the Skydeck. Going to many tall buildings in Europe, none was ever able to deliver a clever, simple way to point out landmarks (the Eiffel Tower, for example, was particularly void of any tool). Skydeck has.

There are a number of vertical poles with metal cylinders at the top acting like telescopes, but without any magnifying lens. They simply direct your vision to exactly where they want you looking, which is at a particular landmark. The landmark you are looking at is written on the pole, and LED displays on the floor next to the pole give a little detail about the landmark. Very simple, yet very effective (you can see a couple of examples in the photo below).

And given the Eureka Tower will become one of Melbourne’s key tourist attractions (if it hasn’t become such already), here is me with the typical Japanese photo salute. If you can work out how Nat is in the picture as well, take a bow.

Month completed: January 2008

Since opening a few years ago, I have always wanted to go to the Melbourne Aquarium, but never got there.

For Christmas, my brother gave me and Nat a gift voucher to go, so yesterday we went.

The aquarium was good - there were plenty of displays and heaps of information, and I would definitely recommend a visit if you have a day spare (I would also recommend booking ahead if you want to do the glass bottom boat tour - we didn’t, and it was all booked out when we tried to book in on the day).

If you want to see a really great aquarium though, visit the Aquarium of Western Australia, next time you are in Perth. The WA aquarium has a better underwater tank, bigger sharks and turtles (the turtles are my favourite), and a seal display, and is overall just a better aquarium.

But that takes nothing away from our Aquarium. One recommendation - don’t go during the school holidays, or you will be spending half your time dodging a thousand-strong army of prams and ankle-biters.*

Here’s me sticking my head out of a bubble in one of the tanks.

* We would have missed overhearing a funny line if we didn’t go during school holidays though.

A mum and her son were looking at a lobster in a tank. The mum said ‘yum’. The son said ‘why do you keep saying ‘yum’ all the time?’. She didn’t reply. I was quite amused.

Month completed: December 2007

For anyone who still thinks of lawn bowls as ‘yawn’ bowls, it’s time for a hit of news - lawn bowls is now trendy.

In fact, it’s probably been that way ever since Mick Molloy’s movie Crackerjack (if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it).

And it is ever since seeing that movie that I have been wanting to play lawn bowls. Given the movie came out in 2002, my first ever game of lawn bowls has been a while in the making.

My much awaited opportunity came last night at the Christmas party of our digital agency (thanks to Visual Jazz for putting on a great night). Melbourne Bowling Club, Australia’s oldest existing bowls club, was the setting for this goal-achieving game.

After a few practice ends (alert - technical lawn bowls term), the 2007 Visual Jazz bowls tournament started. Our team, the Fantastic Three (ironically named given we were a team of four), made it from the initial round of sixteen, down to the round of eight, and then the final four, where we bombed out in a closely-fought contest against the Howling Baboons (also ironically named, given there was not even one baboon on their team, let alone one that howled).

Nevertheless, this first attempt at lawn bowls has opened up a new-found passion for me and I can’t wait to play again.

Still questioning lawn bowl’s ‘trendy’ credentials? Check out these facts:

- You play barefoot

- Beer is at super-cheap prices

- You can bring your beer out onto the green (in fact, rather than being told that we could not bring beer onto the green, we were told that you could only bring beer onto the green!)

- You can play an entire game without having to put your beer down

- It’s pretty much as easy/hard to do left or right-handed, so you can pretend that you are ambidextrous

- You will never raise a sweat, as you exert minimal physical effort

- You can watch old people in their natural environment, and laugh at their silly clothes

- You can roll the ball down really fast and smash into other balls, which is always fun for the inner child in us all (the picture below is of me doing a very mis-directed smash, but at least my form looks OK)

Convinced now?

If so, let me know. I am totally up for another roll.

Month completed: December (well, duh!) 2007

As we well and truly enter the technological age, emails, text messages and social networking websites are now the main forms of communication among my generation. Communication is now very easy, almost too much so.

I’m not sure when was the last time I received a handwritten letter in the post, but I remembered how nice it felt. That someone had taken time out of their day specifically for me.

Recognising this, I made goal 57 to send out Christmas cards (slightly connected to this is goal 58, which involves sending out handwritten letters). And this Christmas, I have achieved this goal.

If you were one of the lucky people who got a card, congratulations. You mean a lot to me. If you missed out, don’t despair - I only sent out 10! Next year I plan to do a lot more.

Doing the cards felt surprisingly good. If you need a bit of Christmas cheer, send out a few Christmas cards - you’ll feel much better.

Merry Christmas all. Stay safe.

Month completed: December 2007

In 2004, I was part of a team that wrote a case study on what it would take for a Melbourne team to be successful in the soon-to-be-launched A-League in Australia (A-League is the premier soccer league in Australia).

Quite a few of the thoughts we had were matched by the team that was eventually created, known as Melbourne Victory. The name was one thing they didn’t match though - we had decided on the name Victoria Colonials. Victoria to make the whole of Victoria feel as though the team was playing for them, and Colonials to help separate the team from the ethnic connotations that were partly to blame for the dissolution of the National Soccer League (the previous premier soccer competition in Australia).

All of this back story is to explain why seeing a Melbourne Victory match was on my list of goals. Ever since they launched, I have been keen to go along, but never have.

During the week I was offered free tickets to go along to the upcoming Victory match. Never one to pass up free stuff, I took two tickets, and Nat and I went along to see Melbourne play Adelaide. And what a game it was.

2-nil down with ten minutes to go, a penalty and an own goal brought the score back to 2-all, which was the final score. There was many highs and lows, and it was overall a great atmosphere. Nat even wants to go and see another match, which has shocked me!

Anyone who hasn’t gone yet, I totally recommend it - Go Victory!

Month completed: July 2007

The Rubik’s Cube is one of the most iconic puzzles ever invented. If there was ever one puzzle I wanted to learn how to do, it was the Cube.

Given the nerdiness of this goal, I nicknamed it ‘The Square vs The Cube’.

But I thought I should take it to the next level - not just learn how to do the Cube, but learn how to do it pretty quickly. 183 seconds seemed like a reasonably quick time, and had a nice tie in with Project 183.

Before trying to do it in under the 183 second mark, I had to learn how to do it. Solving the Cube is done through completing in order a bunch of different moves (or algorithms, as I nerdily like to call them). You can learn the moves here but there are plenty of other places you can go, and even tutorial videos on YouTube.

During my trip to Europe in July I took my newly-purchased Cube with me (much to Nat’s displeasure). The first time I solved it was when we were waiting in line at Dubai airport passport control (BTW, Dubai passport control wasn’t a pleasant experience - but I digress).

After I could do it a few times by memory, I started the process of improving my time taken to complete it, from 15 minutes to 10 to 6 to 4. The first time I did it in under 183 seconds was in my hotel room in Paris, but since then I have done it quite a few times under the 183 second mark. Nat loves me nerdily playing with the Cube!

Below is a video of me doing the Cube in just under the goal completing time. This was a fun and very satisfying goal - and if you would like a personal demo one day, just let me know. I love showing off!

Footnote - I don’t consider using an instructional website as cheating. I had to practise for weeks to memorise the moves in order without looking at my notes, and then even more time practising to do the moves in under three minutes. I would love to hear from anyone who completed the Cube without any form of assistance, because in my books, you would have to be a genius.

Month completed: October 2007

In about a year I am planning to move over to the UK, specifically to London if things all fall into place. The plan is to live there for at least a year, working wherever I can and traveling throughout Europe whenever I can. And on my recent trip over to London, I discovered that having a car anywhere near central London is a waste of time, and that scooters are everywhere, and seem to be the way to go.

Thus, I have decided that before I head overseas, I must learn to ride a scooter. The first step was getting my learner’s permit, which I received a few weeks ago, and since then I have been on the search for the scooter of my dreams.

Not being a massive rev-head, I wasn’t after anything too big and powerful. From the start I was set on something in the 125cc range, and came across the Vmoto Montego.

It is a cool looking bike, with retro styling, and after I took it for a test ride on the weekend, I realised it was the one for me. As you can see from the photo, I went with the black model, which shows a tinge of green when the sun shines on it. It even came with a top box, which was very handy.

With petrol prices the way they are, I look forward to getting about 120 km from 5 litres of petrol. And also no longer struggling for a parking spot in the city or at work.

The only thing left now is to give the scooter a name. Any suggestions?

Month completed: October 2007

It was love at first sight.

The first time I saw the new MINI Cooper a few years ago, when it launched in Australia, I knew this was a car for me.

I have never been keen on big, road-hogging cars, but zippy little race cars I have always had a certain passion for. And the MINI Cooper is exactly that. A starring role in the movie The Italian Job only served to heighten my appreciation.

So naturally, I have always wanted to get behind the wheel of one, and take it for a spin. And today, my dream became a reality, thanks to MINI Garage Kings Way, who were open-minded enough to allow me to take one of their cars for a test drive in order to complete goal 41.

The model I was given to test was a red manual MINI Cooper S and Nat and I took it for a quick trip around Albert Park, a very scenic lakeside area in Melbourne.

My impressions?

The car was all I expected and more. Best gear box in the business, funky key with a button to start and stop the engine, plenty of get-up and go, and one of the coolest interiors I have ever seen.

With the smooth gear changes and the ability to zoom around corners quickly, I felt like a race car driver (most drivers would give a cheesy thumbs-up when photographed, wouldn’t they?).

Would I buy one?

Absolutely. I am completely sold on this car, and now it is just a matter of time before I sign up to become a full time race car driver.

One thing is certain - I will be speaking with the team at MINI Garage Kings Way when I am ready to purchase. Cal, who arranged the drive, was fantastic and I really appreciate his willingness to assist me in completing this goal. If you are in the market for a MINI, give the team at Kings Way a call.

Month completed: October 2007

Sometimes things just fall into place. And that is what happened with goal 140.

I have always loved basketball, more so from a playing perspective than a watching perspective. I played for 15 seasons, and even worked as a basketball referee for four years. But in all that time, I went to just one National Basketball League (NBL) match, and never really followed a particular team.

In the last few years the NBL has suffered from a slow decline in attendances and interest, capped off by losing free-to-air coverage. Case in point for the state of basketball is the history of the Victorian NBL clubs in recent years. In the last few years, three Victorian teams (the South East Melbourne Magic, then the Victoria Titans, then the Victoria Giants) have tried and failed to attract a crowd or make money, and all suffered the same sad fate of extinction.

I have been saddened by this, because I have always thought that basketball should be much more popular. It is widely played throughout primary schools, but this just doesn’t translate to strong NBL attendance figures. I could hypothesise all day as to why this is the case, but I would just give myself a headache.

Anyway, the whole point of that rambling was to introduce the fact that two seasons ago, the latest Victorian team joined the league. This team is the South Dragons.

Rather than lament about yet another Victorian team failing, but doing nothing myself to help, I decided that I should start actually going to matches. Thus goal 140 was created.

This is where a nice twist of fate has come in.

The company I work for has just become very closely associated with the NBL. If you do your research, you will work out which company that is.

This means that now I get free access to any NBL game, anywhere in Australia. At each match we have a corporate box, which is where I sat to watch tonight’s Dragons match, where they unfortunately went down to the Perth Wildcats 97-81. As disappointing as that was, just seeing the game meant goal 140 was achieved.

Having free access to a corporate box made the achieving of this goal very, very easy, and very, very enjoyable. I even got to meet the players post-match.

For those who may be thinking that by getting free tickets I am not really supporting the Dragons as much as I could be if I paid for my seat, I hope that my writing of this post will help the Dragons by inspiring at least one person to go and check out the next Dragons match. Trust me, it will be worth the visit.

Did I mention there was a dozen very fit cheerleaders?