freshbytes

I’ve seen Definitely, Maybe (IMDB) and it’s a great movie.

I asked a friend if he’d seen it, and he said yes. I then asked him if he thought if he thought it was a chick flick, and he also said yes.

Now I’m not sure where this post is going – but I’m definitely sure that Definitely, Maybe is one of those “feel-good” movies that everyone can enjoy.

Running out of inspiration here, so I’ll just wrap it up…

Radi8 on Friday was awesome. I haven’t been to Woody’s Skate Center in quite a while (at least 3 or 4 years) so it was a little tricky at first. After an hour or so, I was blasting around the track

Speaking of Woody’s, I haven’t been there in such a long time – and they’ve completely revamped that place! They now have a fully-fledged LAN centre – all their cases are Antec 900’s (awesome, btw. If I was building my own gaming rig that would be my case of choice, so awesome it is) and they all have widescreen LCDs. Stephen M in particular was totally enthused by the computers, and tried to rope me into gaming with him for an hour.

Gee I was tempted (at $4/hour, which isn’t bad) but I knew that Radi8 was for me to *shock horror* socialise!

Ah well. All in all, it was fairly good night, what with mega smoke machines and laser thingo’s and whatnot, but yeah.

This week’s song for the week is Trouble, by Shampoo (iTMS). This brings me way back (well, I think I heard it when I was really, really young) and I recently heard it again, sung by Joe who drove me and some other guys to Woody’s.

In other news, there are 4 weeks of school left forever.

It’s scary.

I don’t want to leave – it’s not like I haven’t been at Calvin for long enough, but it’s genuinley scary to think that I’m probably never going to see Calvin. I’ll certainly never have the satisfaction of getting my brain crammed full of educational things like “but(t) fields” (ask Year 12 Physics for that one)…

One of these days, I’ll dig out a class photo from Prep so you can see us all… and laugh mercilessly.

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, definitely, maybe, radi8, School

Sheesh. If only I had a honey

Look, it’s the opening line and I’ve already digressed! That has pretty much set the mood for the rest of this post…

So, if you’re asking where the games are, the answer is, gone. I’ve removed the games. Not such a popular move I know, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find them on the internet, if you know what I’m saying…. Just gotta click!

If you’re looking for the snow and wondering where our snow day had gone like I was, I’m happy to announce that I found it. I’ve found the snow!

Most of the snow is currently located on the slopes of Mount Field, in Mount Field National Park. I went up there from the last Thursday and Friday of the holidays with the Radi8 Youth Group, and it was cool. Actually, scratch that, it was ice cold – Top Gear references for the win. This was the day after I bought my iPhone – more on that later.

For now, though, just read the report on the snow below.

So Thursday morning found myself and some 25 other people arriving bright and early at the Radi8 headquarters. From there, we packed the trailer full of our gear, and then it was just a small matter of fitting everyone in some form of transport.

Naturally, yours truly missed out on the “good seats” in the Patrol with all the guys (well, the guys that I was friends with), so I had to bus it up with the ladies. Of course, this might sound glamerous/lucky for me, but it was far from it. Screaming Year 7 girls isn’t anyone’s idea of fun – and it certinaly isn’t mine. My only solace was the awesome music, leading to my purchase of Break Me Down by Christian City Church, from their album For Your Glory (iTMS links).

I hid behind my sunnies until we arrived at New Norfolk. Here, I stocked up on supplies and the like, consisting of two packets of Starburst and a morning tea of an egg and bacon pita with BBQ sauce from Banjo’s. Mmm…

We eventually arrived at the Mount Field huts, where we the unpacked our gear, and so on. Frugus was the order of the day, being the name of the hut that Stephen M stayed in. Lunch then consisted of simple buns with various fillings. It was nice, the but real highlight was what came next: the snow.

We all got dressed for the snow. Some had ski-pants, others still had jeans and (Dunlop) Volley’s. We drove to the car park, and began our ascent up the mountain. Onwards and upwards was the motto of the day as we struggled though a clear feet of snow. Powder snow is really, really cool – you think you’re stepping onto snow that will hold your weight up, but it doesn’t and you get your foot stuck. Dangerous, but fun.

On the first day we hiked all the way up to the base of the ski slopes – a long arduous journey that involved a lost camera, an inner tube, 4 toboggans, a body board, and the mother of all toboggans. At the base, we made camp around some rocks, and while some others journeyed further up, a couple of us stayed behind to make tunnels in the snow, freeze our fingers off, and have an awesome time doing so!

When we were all freezing/had our fill of snow, we journeyed back down – whilst it was still difficult going down (we could fall on our faces at any time) it was far easier than coming up. It was then back to the camp to dry off and down some hot chocolate, and dinner was prepared. After a scrumptious dinner of burritos, we enjoyed a small chapel service by candle light.

It was then time for the most extreme Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament. Yours truly got out really early due to a couple of failed bluffs – All In doesn’t have the same effect in real life that it does have in the Texas Hold ‘Em game on iPhone/iPod Touch – when you go All In on that, usually the other people are scared off and fold…

Redemption arrived in the form of a second life – someone dropped out, and asked me to take over for them. This time I wasn’t so callous with my money – I managed to win a couple of pots. However, the inevitable happened (got beaten with an open ended straight, WTF!) and I came around 5th. Nathan dH managed to take out the cup – snagging an ace-high four-of-a-kind along the way.

Bed ensued at 10:30. I think everyone slept far better than they thought they would.

Early the next morning, we had breakfast and then proceeded to pack our bags. We had to be out of the campsite at 10, so we hurried off to the ski carpark for more snow fun. This time, I didn’t journey up, but those that did were rewarded with snow. Instead, I stayed at the lodge and played poker with a couple of other guys – this time, I was doing really well – but I eventually dropped out to play Catch Phrase! with some other guys who had dropped out of poker beforehand.

It was then time for a creamy chicken soup lunch, with bread rolls and various fillings again. Tomato soup was also on offer, but chicken seemed more enticing. After we had packed up, it was time to leave the snow.

We arrived at the Russell Falls/Mount Field National Park info centre – and we walked to Russell Falls. A quick snack in the park followed, and by that time people were wanting to go home. So we did.

The girls were even more rowdy on the way back, requesting the infamous Do Wah Diddy song by Manfred Mann. While it is quite a good song, I couldn’t find it on Katrina’s iPod. The girls then had to wait until we hit New Norfolk for Dean’s iPod – and when it was finally playing, they didn’t even sing along!! The nerve! After that I ended, I managed to choose For Your Glory and stick it on repeat all the way back…

None too soon, we hit Hungry Jack’s Hobart – I had a double Stacker. It was sort of like a double cheeseburger, but nicer. That was dinner.

Finally, we arrived back at Radi8 HQ – a massive amount of R&R awaited us once we got home.

Apart from the aforementioned Winter Camp, school holidays have been great. Now it’s time to knuckle down for the last 31 days of school – the last days of school for me, ever.

I’ll finish with a joke -

Roses are red;
Violets are blue,
In Soviet Russia,
Poems read you!

Apologies if you didn’t get that. Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: apple, Blog, honey, iphone, iphone 3g, poker, radi8, School, snow, starburst, winter camp

Last Thursday, I went to a Documentary Drama preformed by the Year 9/10 Drama class. The docu-drama was entitled “The Cult of Celebrity”, and it investigated how celebrities affect our lives today.

Besides featuring a song by Britney Spears herself (to their credit, it was well choreographed – thank goodness), it was actually very entertaining and though-provoking. For those of you that weren’t there, (“It’s too cold”, “It’s raining”, “I have homework to do” – slackers, all of you) there was a scene where a couple of guys were doing a court session, where they argued the for and against points of having celebrities influencing popular culture. What they said was largely lost on me, but the ‘court case’ was eventually dismissed. We like our celebrities just as they are, thank you.

Anyways, the main storyline revolved around the preview that the class showed in assembly earlier that day – a “My child’s a star” contest between two child stars (forget their screen names, apologies), Megan Hopper and Emily Jansen. Emily won with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, and the rest of the story revolves around from there…they meet years later in a bar (with a hilarious bouncer), their friends comment on them behind their backs, while meanwhile fan-sites get a straight-A student seeing a shrink because she just isn’t coping…

If you weren’t there, you missed out. Luckily for you, there’s another Drama presentation on this Thursday 3rd July – this time, it’s a comedy by the Student Theatre Company, the excellent Drama class that runs after-hours. It should be excellent – please make an effort to be there!

On the freshbytes news front, you can now post comments in pages. Apologies this took so long to implement – I never realised it was so simple! So, if you’ve been wanting to comment on The Merchant of Venice, the Virtual Game, or even the funky Garageband tunes, you now can! In fact, I encourage you to do so.

One last thing – Radi8 on the weekend was awesome as usual, with an upsized Radi8. I am a little disappointed that the Radi8 website is now a MySpace page, but I do understand why it was done that way. Don’t worry, dear reader, freshbytes will remain WordPress powered for a good period of time – we will reach our target audience eventually

Anyway, in lieu of the Radi8 static-to-myspace downgrade, I’ve got a video for you all… The Radi8 Digital Scavenger Hunt videos from November 2007! This video is Tim’s team which included Tim P, Gemma V, Brendan J, Billy T and Callum M, but fear not – I’ll be posting the other videos each week, so if this isn’t your team – one of these weeks, it will be!

A little background: similar to the Wild Animal Safari held a fortnight ago, we were sent out in teams to do crazy things in Kingston/Hobart – things that included having your whole team in a tree, kissing chickens, singing YMCA with a whole bunch of strangers, getting strangers to spell weird words, walking out of an elevator backwards… the list went on forever. Enough from me, I’m dead tired from the Physics practical write-up, so I’ll shut up and let you watch the video. Comments below, as usual

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, calvin, celebrity, cult, digital, documentary, drama, Freshbytes, hunt, myspace, radi8, scavenger, School

Well…

School photos are upon us once again.

Got any ideas for what we should do for our funny photo? I’d love to hear from you.

Last year’s Year 12’s had hats. Lets not be that lame this year, alright?

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: funny, photo, School, year 12

Christian Perspectives 2008: Reflections

Well, camp is over for another year. The thing about Christian Perspectives that always gets me is the fact that it isn’t a REAL camp as such; no sleeping under the stars, no telling tall tales in the flickering light of the campfire, no cooking your own food and then getting poisoned. What Mrs Laning says is true – it’s a study camp, for Year 11’s and 12’s at Calvin to absorb some Christian Perspectives.

Anyways, after the gruelling one and a half hour bus ride up – people wanted greasies, whatever they are – it was back into the usual activities, where snooker/pool made a popular comeback, as did air hockey and fusball. Basketball was also popular. Others still retreated to their rooms to set up their gear and what-not.

Sessions were the order of the day, and after each session, there was morning/afternoon tea, a little bit of mucking around (with the obligatory cricket, fusball, pool, and basketball) and then another session. Rinse and repeat.

The speaker, Eric Wickmann was actually entertaining, keeping our attention with magic tricks that stunned all. I now know that there are actually FOUR types of people in the world – Beavers, Otters, Lions, and Golden Retrievers. His talk was based on “ASK”: Attitude, Skills, Knowledge. Having the right attitude, and the right skills only got you two thirds of the way. You had to have the knowledge to be able to use your attitude and skills in the right way – or else it just didn’t work. Or something like that anyway – I wasn’t exactly taking notes.. But maybe I should have!

A trip to the beach was the conclusion of activities for day one – where beach cricket, swimming, and beach volleyball reigned! – and after another session, dinner, and The Italian Job, we went to sleep, and that was it.

Bright and early the next morning, the early bird students had showers. The rest slept in. A session, followed by morning tea, another session, and lunch. Then it was down for another trip to the beach, where people enjoyed a game of beach cricket, beach volleyball, or just swam and sunbaked. Can anyone say ‘perfect’ like I can? I don’t mean the beach, nor the games, swimming, or the sunbaking…

Then it was back to base where there was another session. Free time followed, including the obligatory fusball, pool, and basketball. People started getting dressed for Fluoro night, and after some guys were spotted in inside-out dresses, well, it got to the point where it was pretty much anything goes. The Men-In-Black made an appearance, deciding to wear black clothes – we were the outcasts, for sure.

Fluoro night was an outstanding success, where Captain Fluro (Nathan Bosker) made an appearance, as did Used-Car-Salesman Tom de Hoog, Least-Effort James Goodricke, Councilman Ashley Page, plus People’s Choice Awardees Alex Hunt, Grace Campbell-Atkins, and some others…

After the novelty of Fluoro night had worn off, we had some concert items – Liam played and sung two songs for us, cat /dev/urandom piped to /dev/audio, as well as just cat /dev/urandom. It was cool – nothing that we’ve ever tried before, but still fun nevertheless. Chris Jacques then did some serious head-banging to Rammstein’s Du Hast – much to the enjoyment of all in Year 12, who were remembering the Year 10 formal. . Ash’s council talkback – posted here on YouTube. That pretty much summed up the concert items, so Mr Roberts went to Plan B: Mr Robert’s Lame-O Quiz 3! Well, that was the end. Nothing could have beaten Mr Roberts’s Lame-O quiz. The Apha Chief Warden team – but only after some heated controversy – you CANNOT see the Great Wall of China from the moon!!

Anyway, a rather weird movie Serenity followed, and after that, it was time to go to sleep.

The third day, and it was off to the showers again for those early bird students. A session, morning tea, another session, and then, all too soon, it was time to pack up and leave. We emptied the dorms, we cleaned the gathering space, we packed up our gear and loaded it onto the bus. A quick lunch was followed by a bus leaving early, and that was it, Christian Perspectives 2008 was now over, and the Year 12’s were never to be seen at that camp again…

Anyway, enough of what I thought about camp. I want to know what YOU thought of camp! You know the drill; post all of your comments down below…

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: 2008, calvin, christian, perspectives, School