By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
I use half a dozen languages for work and fun, but when I need to quickly get stuff done, Perl still does the job. I couldn't imagine my life without it.
#!/usr/bin/env perl -w
use strict;
&birthday("25th");
sub birthday {
print("Happy $_[0] birthday!\n");
}
A huge thank you to Peter Whiting who showed me Perl when I was 19, and to Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen and Jon Orwant for the language and the Camel Book :).
I had studies practically all day today (hence my de facto birthday!), but I met up with my awesome sister for dinner at the Yum Yum Cha restaurant in Chinatown for a birthday dinner! We had a real heart to heart talk about all kind of things and laughed a lot :)
Out of the blue, she surprised me with a metal wristband for the iPod Nano watch she bought me last year, and the present my old man left me at home turned out to be a brand new Tokina 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens! The thought that went into those presents... speechless.
The iPod Nano watch I'll be wearing every day, problem is now I'll want to take more photos when I should be studying. A great concern!
Also got more birthday hugs from dear friends, and an extraordinarily friendly post from my friend Sebastian. Speechless, again. Thank you so much :'D
As I sit here in the remaining few hours of being 25, I suddenly realise I hadn't written about my wonderful de facto birthday party that took place last weekend!
Had you spoken to me a few weeks ago, you would have been inundated with stories about my struggles with the UTS enrollment system. Turns out several subjects I thought I could get an exemption for fell through, but by the time I realised it the semester had already started and all my required classes had prerequisites! To my delight, the illustriously fabulous Chris Wong was able to patch through my enrollment, and I was able to do a full semester of work again. Whew!
Why am I regaling you with this? Well for one simple reason, I suddenly found myself with far less spare time to celebrate my de jure birthday, and as much fun as I find programming, the idea of wearing party hats and watching Sherlock while stuck in a several hour long classes on application development seemed less than appealing. Not to mention other people in my classes would probably want in.
With this in mind, I decided to do something I'd never done before; partly because I'm obviously not the brightest lightbulb in the ceiling, and because I hadn't ever had enough friends to pull it off! The world's smallest violin playing, just for me. I decided to host an Sherlock marathon tea party; nothing out of the ordinary if I'm to believe it's what rugged, manly people do. In response to several Twitter conversations prior regarding anti-social behavior over dinner with electronic devices, the bringing of laptops, tablets and mobile phones was actively encouraged; I'd mulled over installing a metal detector near the front door with entrance being barred for those without any gadgets on their person, but the cost would have been prohibitive.
My closest friends from UTS and I started the day at the Starbucks in Capitol Square, not to be confused with a geometric square or an American Capitol. Come to think of it, why is it called Capitol Square? I had my traditional Caramel Latte which I've had at Starbucks in various cities on my birthday since I was 13, and despite specific instructions not to these lovely people showered me with gifts! Adorable Haruhi nendoroids, a plushie block of tofu, some of the most original, tastiest sweets I've ever had, and several manga volumes of Toradora and the recently re-released in English Sailor Moon! My sister even chipped in with some bright, colourful, clever Threadless shirts! :)
We headed to Chez Schade on the train (fortunately one with plushie seats) where I demonstrated to a rapped audience the ability of a singular tunnel with uniform appearance to give wildly different phone reception strengths depending on our location. We all had our phones out attempting to best each other's dropped reception; being on Optus I was able to hold out fairly well during the early run but was successful in achiving the glorious "Searching..." status as we approached Earlwood! I guess it was my birthday ;D.
We made it up to my house no thanks to the gigantic hill, then proceeded to spend our afternoon troubleshooting my family's media server, and finally watching some brilliant BBC Sherlock for kicks! Tea was had, presents unwrapped, WiFi passwords set, the works!
Finally to top off the evening, we headed to Ken's Sushi Bar Dining in Bexley North, a single stop from Bardwell Park but an area with staggeringly wondrous phone reception and my favourite Japanese food in Sydney! We huddled around the table in the small place and ordered; several took the opportunity to render me nervous by choosing items I'd recommended... what if they didn't like it!? Fortunately, either they all enjoyed the food or were able to pretend convincingly ;).
We talked and Tweeted, they put up with my terrible jokes, parting hugs were had as we made our way back to Central. ^^
With all the studies, assignments, family work and other commitments in my life right now, it was so lovely to be afforded a (for want of a better word) blessed reprieve and spend a single day just being happy with super friendly people without feeling guilty. I still miss mummy so much it hurts, and obviously on my birthday (the day she obviously played a large part in originally!) those feelings were very close to the surface. Having a great time was a huge weight off my chest, and I really appreciated it. Sincerely.
Thanks to Sashin, Vadim, Cindy, Clara, Sebastian and Emily for an absolutely wonderful time! :'D We must do this again at some point; with the limit on the size of the restaurant lifted we could have even more people, provided they like British television and anime! :D
#hugs
As always, my ever increasing list of birthday posts here on Rubénerd!
Its the sixth birthday I'll be celebrating here at Rubenerd.com, and I won't be breaking my tradition of writing birthday related entries that have absolutely no value whatsoever :).
Given my relatively quiet nature today was mostly spent in the pursuit of happiness in the presence of my old man and sister, as well as my late mum in spirit I like to think. To be honest, for some reason I've been missing her a bit more lately. Perhaps the grim reality has finally started to settle in a bit that she really is gone for good, and that I have to accept it.
But anyway, today marked my quarter century mark being on this warm spinning blue orb in the coldness of space. I quite like it here, I think I'm going to stay :).
This morning I slept in and was greeted at my computer desk with my Mac Pro inexplicably covered in streamers and party bows! Its a family tradition to do silly things such as this, one year my mum filled a relative's birthday card envelope with glitter, so when they opened it the stuff poured everywhere and would have been frightful to clean! We're very sophisticated here ;).
So I made my way to the Euro Coffee Bar down the road from us in Earlwood where my sister Elke works. Shortly before leaving after having my regular cuppa, Elke pounced and gave me a cheesecake with HAPPY BIRTDAY spelled in candles! Allegedly the second "H" snapped in transit, but that's okay I think we have a new meme. :D
If you follow my Google Reader shared items list as of late, you would have seen my... shall we call it "obsession" with these new types of wristbands that turn the latest generation of iPod Nano's into wearable wristwatches. Well along with a Weird Al UHF DVD (yays!) and a terribly awesome Keep Calm and Drink Tea poster, Elke went out of her way and procured me not only said wristband, but an iPod nano to slot into it! I couldn't believe that she had gone to that much trouble for me :)
To be blunt... I feel like Commander Keen walking around wearing this gadget on my wrist. Despite its slightly larger size, its surprisingly lightweight and the clock application with the backlit screen looks absolutely stunning. Other than the fact you need to tap the power button to display the clock, by all accounts its a real wristwatch with timers and stopwatches and displays for the date and customisable timezones and and and and... you get the idea. I'll add a review of this to my pile of posts I have to write at some point :).
We wandered around the city in the late afternoon, then finally made our way to the Austrian Club of Sydney for dinner. Ironically, its rained on my birthday every year since 2005, and I've had German[ic] food for dinner every time as well! I suppose its a tradition at this point, and one I hope continues. Well, the latter at least!
While driving home we took a quick detour and made our way to the Royal North Shore Hospital where my mum was no doubt screaming her head off in pain 25 years ago. I think birthdays should be as much a celebration of the parents who made it possible, and suffice to say the mother does most of the work ;).
As I said on Twitter, it was ironic that despite being born in Sydney, the last time I'd had a birthday here was on my birth... day. My family moved to Melbourne before I turned 1, then we were in Brisbane and finally in Singapore when I was in late primary school. In the whole time since, Sydney (like the rest of Australia) seemed more like a holiday destination than a home, though now I'm glad I'm getting to know this city, even if its 25 years too late!
Thank you to all of you on Twitter, Google Reader, the newsgroups and mailing lists I'm a part of and in email for your wishes :). As I said on the Twitters at midnight:
A quarter of a century ago today (aka 25) my lovely hippy mummy unleashed me upon the world. Rest in peace, I love you <3
It's official folks, I've been on this planet for 24 years, at least according to this timezone. They really need to set up a series of mirrors so the world has daylight at the same time.
For now all I hope for is my 24th year will be better than my 23rd. Without sounding too emo, and while acknowledging plenty of other people have far worse problems than me, I feel as though my life has been on a sharp downward curve for many years now. I've become even more introverted and shy than I used to be (if that were possible), the studies I do in my own spare time thrill me more than any of the stuff I'm learning at university, but perhaps the most crushing is the constant worrying. I'm always worried, but the problems I'm facing aren't any more or less than what I've had before. It's draining all my energy.
Anyway on that upbeat note, happy birthday to me and good night!!! Well technically, good morning seeing as it's 00:18. What am I, a talking clock?
To celebrate my 23rd birthday yesterday, my sister (who's in Adelaide studying at the same university I am) and I braved Adelaide's bafflingly confusing public transport system and went to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills for some German beer and grub, and for a bit of a photographic expedition. Good times!
I've been making the mistake of taking far too many photos and not uploading any of them, so this afternoon I made the time to pick the best shots and upload them to a Flickr photo gallery, surprisingly named Birthday in Hahndorf!.
Hahndorf is a beautiful little German heritage town in the Adelaide Hills in Australia with many German souvenir shops, restaurants, delicatessens, pastry shops, art galleries and coffee shops. Wikipedia's Hanhdorf article has a lot of information about it's history.
The Google Map for Hahndorf gives you an idea where it is in relation to the Adelaide city area:
The German influences are really noticeable in the architecture and design of many of the buildings and streets. At this time of the year when the weather is getting cooler in a part of the hills where it's usually cooler than the rest of Adelaide it starts to feel really authentic. The only hint you're still in Australia are all the Holden cars parked along the side of the road!
Our favourite German restaurant and pub in Hahndorf is the Hahndorf Inn on Main Street; we've been coming here since we first visited Adelaide back in 2004 when we were trying to decide what city in Australia to study in (it's good to have some recent history to recall in times like this in my birth country!)
The food is ridiculously good and reasonably priced, especially compared to German grub in Singapore which can cost over $100 for my sister, dad and I. They also have authentic German beer from Munich on tap which tastes great and is also reasonably priced.
Given it was my birthday I got the German mixed grill which had roast pork, sliced potatoes with herbs, klöße, sauerkraut and a selection of würstes and mustard. As I said, it was ridiculously tasty! Elke got her usual schnitzel, and of course we got plenty of authentic warm pretzels! We had some chocolate cake and coffee for desert after sitting and talking for an hour or so.
I'm regretting posting these photos now, they're making my hungry again! Do you reckon they do home delivery to Mawson Lakes?
After a certain time on weeknights the buses back to Adelaide only leave every hour, so after a few hours of eating, taking photos and walking around we rushed to the main bus stop with just a few minutes to spare. I'd love to come back with my camera when in less of hurry, as I said Hahndorf is a beautiful place.
You can view the rest of the photos I took in my Birthday in Hahndorf Flickr photo gallery.
As for my birthday, I had a great time even if I spent all morning doing homework! I got some great presents and an amazing delivery as well, but those will be for another post. Thank you all for your birthday wishes on Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook and emails :). I was worried how down I'd be feeling considering it's only my second one since mum moved on, but it would've been hard to feel bad with all you guys sending me messages all day. Thank you again!
Big and silly happy birthday wishes going out to my little sister and Rubenerd Show Computer Game Reviewer Elke Schade who turns 19 today. She's three years younger than me, and somehow more mature... speaking of which I used the most embarrassing photo I could find :-D
She's not as cool as those of us born in March, but she wasn't too far off. We can't all be perfect I guess :-)
Frank Edward Nora of The Overnightscape and ons on Twitter turns 40 today, and I wanted to write something here that would do this monuments occasion justice.
In the midst of considering how I would somehow use lasers to etch a greeting onto an obscure astronomical formation that he would be able to see on the other side of the planet, a cool person referred me on Twitter to a randomised font generator page!
Many a happy return Frank, you haven't aged a day ^_^
Ruben's Last Day As A Teenager Episode!
Ruben's Monologue (illegal phone tapping, AFL players doing drugs, four year olds at school), March 27 celebrations (Ruben turns 20, Overnightscape turns 3), Commonwealth Games update (Australia wins most medals, England 2nd, Canada 3rd, Singapore 11th, why I like watching table tennis), Frank Edward Nora What?! (smokin' a pipe here!), drinking Pepsi Max (don't worry, there's no sugar), The Top 5 (most overused words and phrases in pop songs), Make It Great with Phil Gerbyshak (what managers SHOULD be doing!) weather for tomorrow (plus a birthday present from nature for me!) and Will It Sink (headphone jack).
Download MP3 ↓ 30:00 minutes, 13.78MiB
You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive page. It also originally appeared on Ourmedia but it may no longer be accessible there.