On Friday, I had the hearing for my East Gippsland naughtiness in December 2007. It's been adjourned a couple of times, but at 10am yesterday we finally made it to court. I was fortunate enough to have Vanessa, from Bleyer Lawyers, represent me for pro bono. The hearing went well. The magistrate was really good. Luckily he didn't much like logging and he made some good deadpan magistratery jokes about it.

I asked not to get a good behaviour bond because I didn't think I had exhibited bad behaviour. He thought I was a duffer for doing that and tried to talk me out of it. But luckily you can't be forced to sign a good behaviour bond and I got a fine instead.

So now I have a police record and when I get pulled over by the highway police I will have priors. I am suddenly the kind of person they will probably shoot if I get fidgety during RBTs.

Nat and I went to the Easter Show today. It was so much fun. I'd been worried it would be like some other fond memories from my childhood and be a giant disappointment as an adult. But there wasn't even a hint of disappointment. All the stuff I loved as a child (like cows and chickens and woodchopping) I loved just as much. And all the stuff I didn't love as a child (like paintings and cake decorations) I thought were awesome. I still think the rides and showbags are silly. Especially the showbags.

We also managed to catch a ferry back to the city, going against the advice of every responsible adult we spoke to. We had to walk and wait and catch a bus to get to the ferry wharf. But we did it. And it was a winner ferry trip. Even though we didn't go outside because Nat doesn't like wind.

Then, after a stupidly long bus trip (like 50 minutes) back to Woodcourt St, Lauren and I had the most amazing pizza from Crust. Really spectacular pizza. Each slice was an extravagance. At least, each slice of the vegetarian supreme. The mushroom wasn't so incredible (but still good).

Lauren has just moved in today, and it is very good to have her. She is fun and has a good commie house character. She has a lot of tupperware too, which we are in desperate need of. Very good person to have around.

After dinner, Chris and I tried to get the fast internet working. But we couldn't. It hasn't been connected yet. March 31st though. Not far off.

This evening I got what was, without any doubt, the best bicycle commute rain I have ever seen. The roads were so flooded I had to pedal against the current. I had to cycle through streams so strong my bike slid sideways. I had puddles so deep my feet were dragging through the water. I got splashed by trucks and buses. I had to go through dumps of water coming out of gutters.

It was totally winner. And now I am very tired.

My bike got serviced this week for free. It is so unbelievably much more fun to ride. The brakes work. The gears work. The tires aren't flat. Totally sweet. I got new back brake pads too. But I had to pay for those. It was worth it though. So far they've worked every time.

I don't understand how calling Andrew Symonds a monkey is a racist insult. He does look kind of like a monkey.

A few of us folk are going on an adventure down the Jane and Franklin rivers in January. Andrew is one the folk and he made a winner map of the trip.

I had my first beach trip of the season yesterday while I was waiting for the Poverty Expo at UNSW to start. It was well cold, but still good.

I met up with Jo, David and Emily (and bumped into Laurice and her bud) at the Poverty Expo. Except it wasn't an expo. It was a serial presentation about the kinds of the development that make me want to be a programmer.

With only a couple of exceptions, career days only seem to make me less interested in the jobs people are advertising.

Since riding home last night, after chugging down some delicious, not inappropriately priced Belgian beer with David, I have discovered some things:

• the forces of gyroscopy are impressive, but ultimately they are an imperfect substitute for sobriety
• for the inebriated head, the drunken amble is the optimal speed for safely avoiding objects that accost you (such as restaurants, trees, pedestrians, suburbs and gutters)
• correspondingly, even a slow cycling speed is sub-optimal
• much of what makes cars of limited danger to the cyclist is the cyclist's ability to maintain a straight path for at least a brief period

I did, however, manage to make it home.

My left arm has got pretty brown in the last month or so. Browner than my right arm for sure. My theory is that because I ride to university in the mornings and I have to go south, my left side gets more sun than my right. I wonder if other cyclists have the same problem. Over time you could end up looking quite ridiculous.

I rode home in 15 minutes yesterday. It was pretty quick. Now my legs are sore and I have urges to eat potato.

The last few years I've spend a reasonable amount of money. Probably about $10 a week I reckon, which is quite a substantial proportion of my income. I used to try and work out how much money I would save if I rode to uni. I'd do the maths in my head while I waited for late buses. "I'll show Sydney Bues," I'd think to myself, "I'll get to uni quicker, get fit and save money. Damn you." I worked out how long I'd have to ride to pay of the cost of buying the bike in the first place. It was a long time, but in the long run it would be well worth it.

However, I hadn't considered all the costs of riding. Over the past few days I've realised that $1.11 (a bus ticket) worth of food isn't very much food. When you're riding for half an hour twice a day you get hungry. Or I'll get to uni and buy an orange juice for $2.50, completely eliminating any money savings I might have made.

So you win this round Sydney Buses, but just wait until I build my solar-powered scooter.

I bought a new bike today. I've been planning to for about 9 months - ever since the physio told me my knees were bung and needed strengthening. I finally got around to it. The bike cost $350, the helmet cost $50, the lights cost $80 and the carry bar cost $70.

I rode it home with a whole lot of vegies on the back. It was heaps of fun and really fast. Faster than the bus at least. I almost got run over by a truck though. It swerved at the last minute and then the car behind it almost hit me. It's good to be back on the rodes.

Although I can't believe I spent $80 on lights. I went in to buy the bike while it was light, but by the time I left it was dark and I didn't have a choice. I bought the same thing at Kmart last time for $15. Well, not exactly the same.

This is totally a fitness day. I went to the gym for two hours as well. Fun fun.

Jo and I are the latest victims of the obesity crisis. The City2Surf has sold out, due to an overwhelming surge in demand. I don't want to generalise but this demand, I suspect, is mostly driven by tubbers looking for motivation to exercise.

Dad, Matt and I went the Swans match tonight at Telstra Stadium. It's an excellent stadium. I like the circular ramps. And the station queuing. Although the whole stadium only has one ATM. And it happened to be right at the bottom. And we were right at the top. There was a big queue. I suppose that's what happens when you make 100,000 people all share one ATM. They have to queue for it.

It was a sad match. Everyone played badly. But Sydney played much, much worse than Collingwood. Much worse. They lost. Quite badly, but not as badly as we'd expected.

It was probably good Ma didn't come. It was very cold. And her team lost.

Ma had said she would go to the football with us this evening. But just because she's 93 and just because it's forecast to snow she's decided she isn't going to come. So it's just going to me and my dad and Matt.

I accidentily sort of bought Rome: Total War and Empire Earth II the other day while I was at the shops. I've spent the last two days mostly playing Total War. I'm still only just figuring out how it works, but what a fantastic game it is. So satisfying to get it right, and I reckon that's what real gaming is all about. It's the satisfaction of having your city running well. The satisfaction of finishing a Sonic level in 23 seconds. The satisfaction of watching your 9 light cavalry charge into the flank of 30 heavy infantry and seeing them rout. There are so many possibilities. You can fire flaming rocks at fleeing peasants. I've never found violence so entertaining. I want to play with other people, because the computer falls for the feint every time. But goodness me there is so much fun and mayhem to be had. And for only $25 too.

I haven't even opened Empire Earth. That might have to wait until after my exams.

Dad, Stella, John and I all went for a bushwalk on the weekend. It was a real winner. We caught a train to the start and Jane picked us up at the end so it was super easy. The whole walk was virtually in our backyard, but it ended up being one of my favourite walks. Hornsby area has some pretty awesome bushland. And same way neat bridges.

John did the catering and it was brilliant.

Jo and I (and little bit of Emily) went for a giant run just then. I thought it would be about 4 or 5 kms, but I reckon it ended up being closer to 7 or 8 km. We ran non-stop for about 40 minutes. I haven't been for a job in a good while, and I'm starting to feel seedy. I was reading today about the different sorts of fats. Fat makes me feel a bit gross, and I was reading that some sorts of fats are really hard to get rid of. There is this fat called "visceral fat" which lodges itself between all the organs in your stomach. It's what gives people beer bellies.

So apparently I read this paper and I have to run 33kms a week for six months. I will lose 7% of my visceral fat and 8% (or something) of my subcutaneous fat on average across the sample (of one). I reckon they give the fats such disgusting names because they want us to be disgusted and start exercising. Jogging for an hour seems far more appealing than have a belly full of visceral fat, even if you hate exercise.

I give my new regime about three days. Luckily I forget nearly every paper I read in about that long.

Yesterday morning Jo was amazingly patient with me. We'd been planning to go for a run at Coogee at 9am. So when she woke me up at 10am I was already feeling a bit bad. I got dressed and made it out to the car. But then I decided I should come in and get my university work stuff so I could get dropped off on the way back. I was very speedy packing my bags, but a little too speedy running down the drive way. I tripped over the little gate lock hole in the middle of the driveway, sprained my ankle, did a funny roll across the footpath and wound up out on the road. I limped back to the house and Jo went off for a run by herself. I iced my ankle with frozen wedges. Which I later ate.

I got the Danae Brook photos from Dad finally. It was a hell of a day.

Peter Kaldor took the photos on our Crossing River trip. I've finally got around to putting them up.

I bought a last minute Blues Festival ticket for $300. I feel very sad for the poor girl who wasn't able to go. I was the only bidder so I paid the first bid I made. I am glad that I have a proper ticket though, rather than a stolen-from-my-friend ticket.

Google Maps tells you how to get from New York to Dublin via a vigorous swim across the Atlantic ocean. It even tells you which US wharf is the best to leave from. It estimates the whole journey should take about 29 days. I wonder if they've factored in time to take short rests during the swim. I get puffed swimming the whole length of an olympic pool, so I for one wouldn't be making the whole trip without a few breaks.

I've been very good at university this semester. I've done nearly all my readings, and all of my homework. I actually don't think I've been this good since first year. But just this week I decided I needed to spend more time reading about the real world, and economics in particular. I need to remind myself why I'm studying economics at all, because the content of the courses won't give you any hints.

So I subscribed to a bunch of economics blogs, several of them suggested by Denzil. Most of them are interesting. Several of them are quite brilliant. They all seem to do a very good job of communicating sort of moderately interesting ideas in a lucid manner. Lucidity is one of the things I crave most. Lucidity, and a brain that actually retains some of the stuff it discovers.

Despite the sporadic pangs of cognitive inadequacy I've definitely enjoyed a last few days of stimulation. However, it meant that every time I sat down to study I instead ended up reading about real world problems that were much more useful. Useful in the big picture sense, but perhaps not on the semester-long scale. Unless the constant reminders that economics actually is useful mean I don't drop out of university. Assuming not dropping out is a good thing.

Possibly I need to renew my old New Year's Resolution to spend less time with humans and more time with computers and books. I have a feeling I would discover problems with that approach too if I pushed it to the extreme. In the absence of the sort of mind and time management skills that might make learning simply a process of mathematical optimisation, I'm a little lost as to how to balance these things. I suppose I'll just have to fuddle my way through it with trusty trial and error.

Today was so much fun. One of my favourite days. These are all the photos and these are some of the ones I like most.

Yesterday I went for a run with Mil. It was a pretty good one. I went for another today. It was longer and hotter. I got to see some neat parts of Stanmore and Petersham.

They were my first runs for about three months.

Last night I went to the 21^st of a friend of mine from uni. We've been friends since my first semester there and she's probably the only person I met then who is still there. She is super cool and one of my favourite people there - one of the few not that concerned with how cool she looks. She has always struck me as kind of shy, and I wasn't sure what to expect. For a 25 year-old, 21^st parties are scary at the best of times but going by yourself to a party on the northern beaches was fairly difficult for me. I ended up being pretty late, but I decided I wanted to go because I always cop out of these sorts of parties and I thought it would be nice to see my friend in her element. I'd also had two glasses of wine at dinner, and I'm pretty sure that made it easier.

So I got there about three hours after it started worried that everyone would have gone home. I thought there was a chance it would be a quiet sort of affair with official starting and finishing times. But a quiet affair it certainly wasn't. As I walked up the street I was accosted by some other party-goers who were taking a breather outside. They asked my how I new my friend and loudly announced that she was inside half-naked. So I walked inside and sure enough there she was. After some drunken hugs and declarations of love and good-humored sexual assault by one of her friends I was directed upstairs to the heart of the party. No one was remotely sober except for one lad standing downstairs by himself who reminded me of me. There were drunk girls in tiny dresses lolling about and drunk girls in slightly less tiny dresses trying to fend of drunk boys.

It was a posh house with split levels and everything made out of expensive wood. I'd been trying to figure out why my friend, who lives in the Western Suburbs, was having a party on the northern beaches in this sort of a house. I assumed her parents must know some fancy people and they'd been able to borrow it. But I couldn't see any adults there. I was definitely the oldest by several years. I'd brought some beer so I put it down and took a bottle for myself. It was a bizarre scene and I was glad for the wine with dinner or standing by myself in the middle of the kitchen would have been more awkward than amusing. As it was, I thought it was great. Of about 70 people no-one was really having a normal conversation, although there may have been two of the more amply-dressed girls who were close. It was just drinking and hugging and eating and laughing and flirting and taking photos and dropping digital cameras. Not having a camera or any food, there weren't any talents I could really contribute to the party.

After about 15 minutes I was starting to wonder if I could leave quietly. It felt pretty lame, but there is only so long you can stand around for when you haven't any food. I considered going and talking to the sober boy, but a drunk boy decided to take him under his wing. I was a bit stumped.

Then I was saved. Three people, all in their forties, came into the house and started yelling at everyone to leave. They demanded my friend come forward and explain herself. She was standing right next to them and got a pretty vicious smack down. Apparently they had been promised there would be no parties in the house and the police had been called because it was so loud. It was like a real bust. I thought they were pretty rough on my friend but I suppose you can't blame them. My friend recovered quickly and suggested everyone go to the beach. Everyone was relieved, although a few boys got angry before girls were able to usher them out.

I grabbed my beer and left with the others. As appealing as the thought of going to the beach with all those folks was, I decided against it. I drove off but became worried that my two wines and a beer had put me over the limit. So I stopped at Dee Why beach. I haven't been there since I was little and it was so strange going back. The whole beach has shrunk enormously. But it was really nice. The sky and water were totally black and the murky moon was popping throught he clouds. I sat on the beach and waited for the moon to come out and then jumped into the water. It was wonderful. One of my favourite midnight swims (although it may have been more like 11:30). It was amazingly warm. And the moon was beautiful.

After my swim I strolled past some lesbians having flirtatious races on the sand and got back in the car. I drove home and watched the first 5 minutes of El Mariachi before falling asleep. Oddly enough, it was a pretty fun night.

I'm going to get rid of all my boxer shorts today. For emergency late night swims they are totally useless.

An Iraqi child offers a toy to some British soldiers in Basra (Sydney Morning Herald)