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// Filed under: Life on Tuesday April 03rd 2007, 10:13 pm So hey, somebody graduated on Monday night. Was it you, Tim? Why, yes it was! I may now officially refer to myself as Tim Colwill, BSc. (Games Technology), which I think we can all agree has a much better ring to it than Tim Colwill, Undergraduate Machineslave. Of course, being a graduate of the presitigious Murdoch University comes with several rights and responsibilities, not the least of which is to sit through about twenty solid minutes of Discoverers Welcome advertisements for the university we just graduated from. Yes, Murdoch, we all know you’ve just paid a couple million dollars for some designers to develop a new corporate image for you - and frankly, it was about time you got rid of the “Brilliant!” slogan that it must have taken all of 10 minutes to cook up in your smoke-heavy multimedia rooms - but, hey, and this may come as a surprise - we just graduated from you. Reminding us again of exactly how great our former university is, is probably a slightly less than worthless procedure. But that aside, it was a most excellent night. We retired to the Moon Cafe to try our hand at consuming an entire Moon Burger - each. Not a small feat, and definitely one to cull the weak from the strong. Needless to say, I was the only victor, the others complaining of intestinal bleeding and “Jesus, Tim, you’ll fucking die, just stop, man, you’ve proved your point”. And I had. It’s definitely a weird feeling, this graduated-thing. I mean, I understand that it is, on a theoretical level - very important. But… I don’t feel as if anything has changed, pretty much at all. I still talk to the same lecturers, I still go to the same university - albeit for work, instead of study… hell, I spend all weekend at the GO3 Expo staffing the Murdoch University stand there. The only thing that’s changed is that none of us are screaming about incoming deadlines and impossible game requirements. So basically, I don’t really know what to think. Of course, one of my first acts as a graduate was to receive a rejection letter from Interzone Games, the new company setting up shop in Perth. While they are hiring, it’s only for people with years of industry experience under their belt. Of course, this might be a somewhat difficult proposition given the fact that Perth has absolutely no games industry from which to draw this experience, but at any rate I am left with two options, one distinctly desperate, and the other distinctly frightening. I can either sit around and wait for the inevitable lowering of standards, or emigrate Eastwards towards the sort of bustling metropoli that I, a small-town Perth boy, finds innately terrifying. So, it looks like I’ll be moving interstate, then. I don’t know when, or where, but from this point on, it’s pretty inevitable, and that frightens me a bit. I still live with my parents, as I have for the past 21 - nearly 22 years. The idea of both moving out AND moving interstate in one fell swoop is one that will need a lot of serious thinking about, and all I really want to do is play video games and spend time with my girlfriend. Bah, it’s all too hard. // 8 Comments 
// Filed under: Politics, Life on Monday January 29th 2007, 1:31 pm Dear Diary, Today I met a young Asian woman who strongly supported Pauline Hanson and her policies. As ever, // 2 Comments
// Filed under: Life on Saturday January 20th 2007, 8:48 pm Three days in a row now, I have been offered, out of the clear sparkling blue, a banana. Three days in a row. Why? “They’re cheap again! Have one!” Bananas are cheap again? So? Is our culture really so banana-starved that as soon as the price drops below a-bazillion-dollars-a-kilo, the banana replaces the traditional courtesy offering of a cold beer, pocketed cigarette or cup of tea? I’m going to go ahead and say, yes. Anyway. Let’s talk about life. Grab your bananas and sit comfortably. So I’ve finished university now. Almost. That multimedia unit I dropped in 2005 has come back to haunt me, as I’m forced to pick up the summer-school reins and drive myself through four intensive weeks of Special Topics in Sociology: Islam, Teror and Multiculturalism. I’ll have to write an essay. An essay. For the first time in… well, Allah knows how many years. Hopefully my essay-writing voodoo hasn’t atrophied with disuse, though I doubt I’ll ever reach the peaks I once looked down from with disdain. Did you know in 2001 I wrote an essay effectively claiming that Impressionism didn’t actually exist? Got 97.5% for that one. If you’ve heard that story already, I apologise. I’m absurdly proud of that. Once that’s done though, it’s a one-way train to Graduation City, gateway to Employmentsville and Middleagecrisisopolis. Affectionately known to the locals as The Rest Of My Life. It will be great to get out of university finally. Not that I haven’t enjoyed it - I’ve made some fantastic friends, did some work I’m exceptionally proud of and had the privilege of being taught by amazing people. But I’m done. I’m done with being graded and taught and working towards beginning a life. I just want to move on, to wherever that is. Speaking of moving, my car works now. The steering wheel, in what can only be described as some sort of ground-breaking technique, actually turns. It is a horseless carriage of pure delight once again. The radiator was fixed as well, though not without some shady dealing. While it was in the radiator shoppe I received on my mobile a phone call, from the radiateur, informing me that my thermostat was sticking. This is of course the classic “Excuse me, but how about some more of that delicious thing you earthlings call money” line, so I was naturally cynical and told them to leave it, I’ll take my chances goddammit, living on the edge may scare chumps like you but the word “catastrophicenginefailureduetoblownthermostat” isn’t in this man’s dictionary, thankyou kindly. They kindly accquiesced and disconnected their phone. Anyway. I get home, and idly read through the work statement. A phrase catches my eye. “Due to customer opting not to replace thermostat, warranty could not be given on radiator”. Clever bastards. Still, that’s all taken care of by a different, trusted mechanic now, so hopefully the only catastrophic engine failure taking place will be that of the wankers who overtake me on the highway when I’m cruising along at the speed limit. You fuckers know who you are. I’m going to segue untidily here and tell you that I went to Sydney in December. For two amazing weeks with Jess, my amazing girlfriend. I don’t think two uses of the word “amazing” in any given sentence quite encapsulates the love I have for this woman, or what a wonderful woman she is. But I did it anyway. That’s life on the edge for you, folks, right there. Sydney is… well. Myriad. The city itself is dirty. Dirty and harried. We caught the train in a few times, and as we rattled along in the germ-infested-coffins that pass for train carriages in that eastern land, the vista out the window as you cross into the city proper is nothing short of terrifyingly enrapturing. It’s a criss-cross bombshell of rusting scaffolding, abandoned metal-clad buildings, broken windows, piles of scrap metal… I would not have batted an eyelid to see a Martian tripod bellow an earth-shattering warcry as it stalked scurrying human resistance members through this broken labyrinth. It was like something straight out of the more desolate urban areas of Half-Life 2, or the nastier quarters in Children of Men. A great game and a great film respectively. And Sydney people? Yeah, you’re all jerks. With your oh-god-I-am-in-such-a-hurry driving and your dirty looks when I don’t stand to the side on an escalator to let you scurry up like the fervent, bargain seeking rats you are. In Perth, you motherfuckers, you get on an escalator and you fucking relax that shit up. The power of mechanical science is carrying you up, or if you’re feeling particularly sauce, down, an incline. Why would you want to ruin that sort of civilised tranquility with all this exertion crap. You fucking bastards. Now, Sydney suburbs. These I like. A lot. In fact, the further you get from the city proper, the more tranquil and pleasant everything gets. By the time we got to the Blue Mountains, it was like some sort of fog-covered nirvana. Oh, speaking of fog, let me describe our Blue Mountains experience for you: more fog. We were there for three days and on the second, and last days, it was completely fogged up for the entire day. Not just in the morning or afternoon - the entire, goddamn, day. We managed to get to see the valley on the first day though, and.. well. Wow. I could have stood there for hours. Just… trees. Stretching away in every direction, so small they blend into one endless carpet of green. It was incredible. It was so empty and so full of life at the same time. I wish I could have gone down there, trekked through it, come out the other side, wherever it ends. When we went to Canberra as well, it was the same - looking out over the vast, endless dry flatness on the side of the Federal Highway. It was inspiring, and magical, and… yeah. There’s always been a little part of me that wanted to throw everything away and spend the rest of my life exploring Australia from one end to the other, and now it pipes up stronger than ever, in the quieter moments. There’s so much out there, and it’s so beautiful. I wish I could get to know it better. Anyway. I had to come back. And here I am. I feel weirdly apprehensive. Graduation, and gainful employment, lurk so close around a corner, yet I can’t bring myself out of my carefree-post-project cruising to focus on which way I’m sailing. This post is way too long. Stay tuned, sports fans. // 3 Comments
// Filed under: Life on Monday January 01st 2007, 1:55 am So. It’s 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. I’ve soberly volunteered to drive four slightly inebriated friends from our party back to their local slumbering hole. We pile into my car and race off in the manner of young folk, scraping the underside of my beautifully heavily-laden car across the kerb as we do so. Ten minutes later down the road, smoke is billowing out of my bonnet and my temperature gauge is screaming red murder at me. I swear like a fishwife, and yank the car off the road into the service entrance of a nursing home for inspection. Of course, the hood is smoking hot, so we have to leave it for a while. Obviously the radiator is somehow borked, so calls are made to the RAC (roadside assistance). My friends and I wait patiently for two hours until the car arrives (it’s a very busy New Year’s Day). The learned RAC man takes one look inside my bonnet and casually informs me that my car won’t be going anywhere without an entirely new radiator. So. He hands me a tow slip, calls me in a tow truck and takes off again. Half an hour later, the tow truck arrives and together we manhandle my burgundy beast onto its back and drive off into the night, leaving my sobered-up friends to take our other car back to the slumberhole and return to gather the rest of our now-slightly-less-merry band. Of course, nobody is less merry than myself, as I arrive home at 5 a.m. on New Year’s Day looking at a $400 replacement radiator, not to mention the steering fix, oil filter, brake pads and general complete overhaul my car’s been needing for a time. Happy New Year, everyone! // 3 Comments
Save Me Some Daylight, I’ll Be Back For Christmas // Filed under: Politics, Life on Saturday December 02nd 2006, 11:31 pm I am totally staying up until 2 am so I can flick my clock an hour forward and make it 3 am. For this is Perth, Western Australia, and finally we are joining the rest of the free-thinking, terrorist-hating, pimple-popping western world in taking advantage of the longer daylight hours offered in summer. It only took us about forty goddamn years of pointless debate before John “Superannuation Scandal” D’Orazio rammed his legislation through the house like a spiked phallus through so many delicate orifices, and here we are with a three year daylight savings trial, with a referendum to be held sometime in 2010. Four minutes. Of course this left the government with about ten days in which to organise the schedule of the whole thing and start telling people exactly what the fuck to do, but hey, better late than never I guess. I’m interested to see how the referendum’s going to go down. Personally I don’t really care either way, but I can definitely see a lot more positives for daylight savings than negatives, so I’m happy to let it all go through. And because I’m interested to see how it’ll turn out, I realise that the only way to get people in WA to quit arguing about anything and just do it is to shove it on them before they can debate about it, so really this is best approach. At least this way we’ll get a three year test drive and see how we like it. Three minutes. I’m kind of saddened that I probably won’t be here in WA when the time comes to vote in the referendum in 2010. Game jobs here in the West are few and far between, and over in the glorious Employment East, where games companies are a dime a dozen and my skills are actually applicable, daylight savings has been in effect for ages. But still, I’m glad to see WA actually trying something on before they dismiss it out of hand. Two minutes. Speaking of the East, I’ll be heading over there in five days. Not for a job, you understand. Unless you count being in madly in love a job. One minute. Give me ideas for a present worth $10 for a family get-together this Christmas. It’s got to be completely abstract and of no feasible use to anybody whatsoever. I’m thinking $10 worth of solid cork. ….And we’re on. Happy daylight savings, everyone! See you in three years… // 2 Comments
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